Tag: voter fraud

Texas Indicts 5 County Officials In Voter Fraud Investigation

Six Texas residents — five of whom are current or former local Frio County officials — were indicted on Wednesday in a voter fraud probe.

“The people of Texas deserve fair and honest elections, not backroom deals and political insiders rigging the system. Elected officials who think they can cheat to stay in power will be held accountable. No one is above the law,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.

According to a Paxton press release, the six individuals are charged with allegedly engaging in illegal ballot harvesting activity. Texas law specifies that only a voter can return his absentee ballot, with limited exceptions.

Among the charged persons is Rochelle Camacho, a Frio County judge who a grand jury indicted on three counts of ballot harvesting. In addition to two Pearsall City Council members, the indictments also included former Frio County Elections Administrator Carlos Segura, who was charged with one count of “Tampering with or Fabricating Physical Evidence,” according to Paxton’s office.

The state AG’s office noted that five of the named individuals were arrested last week, “with the exception of Rochelle Camacho, who will be processed at a later date.” Five of the six suspects have “ties to Democratic candidates,” The New York Times reported.

The charges stem from a series of search warrants executed last August by Paxton’s Criminal Investigation Division. The warrants were related to what the AG’s office characterized as “a multi-year election integrity investigation into credible allegations of vote harvesting” across Frio, Atascosa, and Bexar Counties.

What’s notable about the still-ongoing probe, however, is its encompassing of individuals tied to a prominent left-wing activist group.

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Filing: Smartmatic Hid Meeting With Dem Megadonor Who Financed Its Suit Against 2020 Election Reporting

Smartmatic, the electronic tabulator company suing Fox News for alleged defamation following the 2020 election, failed in a February court hearing to disclose a meeting with Democrat megadonor Reid Hoffman, newly unsealed court documents allege.

Following the 2020 election, both Fox News and Newsmax “hosted commentators who aired concerns that tabulators were not secure, were vulnerable to voter fraud, and had possibly changed Trump votes to Biden votes,” as described in these pages by Logan Washburn. Smartmatic sued, arguing the comments amounted to defamation. Fox previously settled a suit with Dominion Voting over similar allegations while Newsmax recently settled with Smartmatic for $40 million, according to NBC.

As Washburn reported, Fox had previously expressed concerns about a “deep-pocketed ‘third party’ behind the suit” — allegations that Smartmatic denied in 2023, according to Reuters. But reporting from The Washington Post revealed Hoffman invested millions in Smartmatic, as the company sued news outlets for their reporting about the 2020 election. In July 2024, the Post reported that Hoffman had “connected with Smartmatic chief executive Antonio Mugica through friends of friends” and was “boosting” its lawsuit against Fox.

According to a newly unsealed filing, Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica met with “politically-motivated investors … to discuss the company’s financials and investment prospects.” That’s “a fact that Smartmatic withheld from this Court on February 5, 2025,” says the document, which was initially filed under seal with the New York State Supreme Court in April before being unsealed this week.

“After that meeting, Hoffman and [his adviser Dmitri] Mehlhorn infused Smartmatic with $25,000,000 to fund its litigation against Fox and publicly declared that Smartmatic could be a ‘$400 million’ company but for the alleged defamation,” the filing continues.

A “deposition transcript from the Newsmax case confirms that Hoffman and Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica had a private meeting,” according to the document. But “Smartmatic did not tell the Court at that [Feb. 5, 2025] hearing … that Antonio Mugica, Smartmatic’s CEO, had met with Hoffman and Mehlhorn via videoconference about Smartmatic’s finances, this lawsuit,” and Hoffman’s funding, it says.

The filing also alleges that Smartmatic had previously “failed to disclose to Fox that … it entered into a litigation-funding agreement with … an entity controlled by Reid Hoffman,” a fact that Fox learned “from public media reports” in July 2024, “just seven days before the then-scheduled close of fact discovery.”

In a statement to The Federalist, a Fox News representative said it’s unsurprising that Hoffman would be involved.

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“Low IQ” MI Dem Lawmaker Waltzes Into Election Integrity Hearing Late, Misses Powerful Testimonies, Quickly Questions the “Credibility” Of Black Man Who Says Someone Voted In His Name After He Moved From Detroit

Yesterday morning, lifelong Detroit resident and election integrity activist Ramon Jackson and Pastor Lorenzo Sewell (who became a national treasure after he delivered a powerful benediction at President Trump’s 2025 inauguration) appeared before the MI House Election Integrity Committee with a room full of supporters and “living affidavits” from Detroit residents and in one case, a previous resident. All were eager to share their stories with the Michigan lawmakers about how their names had been illegally used to vote or register in Detroit elections.

Michigan House Election Integrity Chair Rachelle Smit brilliantly navigated the hearing despite attempts by Democratic committee members to discredit the witnesses and their powerful testimonies.

Representative Mae Xiong shamelessly arrived at the committee hearing over 10 minutes late and within minutes was telling the first witness, who moved to Roseville, MI, from Detroit and was then registered to vote at his previous Detroit residence by someone or some entity other than himself, that she didn’t find him to be very “credible.”

Mr. Kennedy has signed an affidavit stating that he has never voted in an election, yet someone has voted using his name at least 3 times!

Before he was finished testifying, Chair Smit asked him if he had ever voted in an election in Michigan, to which he replied, “No.”

Ramon Jackson, who brought the witnesses to Lansing to testify, jumped in to remind the lawmakers that it’s easy to discover when Mr. Kennedy obtained his new driver’s license after moving out of Detroit, if they want to verify that someone began voting for him after the MI SOS transaction.

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Democrat Judge Indicted in Ballot Harvesting Scheme, Public Officials Arrested

The Texas Attorney General’s office indicted a Democrat county judge and arrested several public officials, accusing them of scamming voters by engaging in an illegal vote ballot harvesting scheme.

A former Frio County elections administrator, a Frio County vote harvester, two Pearsall city council members, and a Pearsall school board member were all arrested last week on charges of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and vote harvesting, with Frio County Judge Rochelle Camacho also facing three counts of vote harvesting, while her “processing” is postponed for a later date.

“The people of Texas deserve fair and honest elections, not backroom deals and political insiders rigging the system,” reads a statement from Texas AG Ken Paxton.

The AG’s office explained the arrests stem from cooperation with Frio County District Attorney Audrey Louis and a probe by its Criminal Investigation Division, which looked “into credible allegations of vote harvesting.”

“On May 1, 2025, Frio County District Attorney Audrey Louis and the Election Integrity Unit of the Office of the Attorney General presented a criminal vote harvesting case to a grand jury in Frio County,” Paxton’s office wrote.

Here’s a list of the indicted and arrested public officials:

  • Frio County Judge, Rochelle Camacho: 3 counts of Vote Harvesting
  • Former Frio County Elections Administrator, Carlos Segura: 1 count of Tampering with or Fabricating Physical Evidence
  • Pearsall City Council, Ramiro Trevino: 1 count of Vote Harvesting
  • Pearsall City Council, Racheal Garza: 1 count of Vote Harvesting
  • Pearsall ISD Trustee, Adriann Ramirez: 3 counts of Vote Harvesting
  • Alleged Frio County Vote Harvester, Rosa Rodriguez: 2 counts of Vote Harvesting

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Colorado Postal Worker Pleads Guilty To Fraudulently Casting Multiple Mail Ballots In 2024 Election

Aformer Mesa County, Colorado, postal worker awaits sentencing after admitting she stole and cast mail-in ballots in the 2024 general election. It is one of those election crimes we are told does not happen, despite so many opportunities for fraud in the ballot chain of custody.  

Vicki Stuart, 64, and her alleged accomplice Sally Jane Maxedon, 60, were accused of identity theft, attempt to influence a public servant, and forgery. Maxedon has not entered a plea yet and is expected in court May 8, according to Mesa County Clerk of Courts office.

According to the Mesa County District Attorney’s office which investigated the cases, in October, county elections workers started getting calls from people who said they had been notified that their ballot was rejected because of signature discrepancies, but they reported they had not yet received their mail ballot, although they had received the “Informed Mail “notification — a photo of the ballot envelope addressed to them, to let them know it was on the way.

The reports came from people who lived near each other. Some of the ballots were mailed to locked U.S. Postal Service (USPS) neighborhood mailbox clusters, leading investigators to believe someone who worked for USPS was involved.

Stuart, a mail carrier at the time, substituted for the normal mail carrier on the affected route on Oct. 12. When questioned, she confirmed she delivered many ballots that day.

 But she also compared the name on the ballot to the name printed on individual mailboxes. If there was no match she held that ballot back. Stuart told investigators she marked them “return to sender” and sent them back to the main hub. USPS told investigators mail carriers should not do this because they don’t know all the names living at an address.

She denied any involvement with ballot theft when questioned on Oct. 24.

Investigators looked at five ballot envelopes with forged signatures that had not yet been opened, and checked for fingerprints on the ballots inside.

They found Maxedon’s fingerprints on at least one bogus ballot and then interviewed her on Nov. 5.

At first Maxedon told investigators the ballots were given to her by a random man she did not know who asked her to help test the voting system. She admitted casting ballots that did not belong to her, the DA’s complaint said.

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New Jersey Democrats INDICTED AGAIN in Expanding Voter Fraud Case — Accused of Stealing and Forging Ballots and Voter Registrations to Rig 2020 Election

Paterson City Council President Alex Mendez faces new charges in a superseding indictment related to the May 2020 municipal election.

Alongside his wife, Yohanny Mendez, and campaign workers Omar Ledesma and Iris Rigo, Mendez is accused of orchestrating a scheme involving the theft and forgery of ballots and voter registrations to secure his council seat.

The indictment alleges that the group unlawfully collected and tampered with vote-by-mail ballots, including destroying ballots not cast for Mendez and submitting fraudulent ones in their place.

According to a press release from the Attorney General’s Office,

“The 10-count superseding indictment alleges that Mendez, who represents the Third Ward on the Paterson City Council, his wife Yohanny Mendez and campaign workers Omar Ledesma and Iris Rigo tried to deprive Paterson residents of a fair election. Alex Mendez was first indicted in 2021 for election-related offenses. Further investigation by OPIA resulted in additional charges filed by complaint in October 2023 against the co-defendants, as well as additional charges for Alex Mendez, all stemming from the May 2020 election.

[…]

Based on publicly filed documents and statements in court in this case, the OPIA investigation began after hundreds of mail-in ballots for the May 2020 Paterson election were found in a postal box in the neighboring municipality of Haledon, when all voting was being conducted via vote-by-mail because of COVID-19.

Members of the alleged conspiracy face several charges including Tampering with Public Records or Information (third degree), Falsifying or Tampering with Records (fourth degree), Forgery (third degree), and Election Fraud (second degree). Among the allegations, they are accused of submitting fictitious or fraudulent vote-by-mail registrations and ballots.

The superseding indictment contains a new charge of Theft (third degree) against the four defendants for allegedly taking other peoples’ ballots with the intent to deprive them of their vote. It also includes a new count of Receiving Stolen Property (third degree) for those four defendants, alleging they received ballots that they knew had been stolen.

It is further alleged that the defendants tried to cause one or more witnesses previously contacted by investigators to make additional, contradictory, and false statements – leading to the superseding indictment’s new charge of Witness Tampering (third degree).

The superseding indictment also charges an additional defendant, Ninoska Adames, a Paterson resident, with Hindering Apprehension or Prosecution (third degree) and Tampering with Public Records or Information (third degree). She allegedly falsified a voter certificate on a vote-by-mail ballot and gave false information to detectives with the intent to hinder the State’s investigation into the May 2020 election.

The charges are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Second-degree charges carry a sentence of five to 10 years in state prison and a fine of up to $150,000. Third-degree charges carry a sentence of three to five years in prison and a fine of up to $15,000. Fourth-degree offenses could lead to up to 18 months in state prison and a fine of up to $10,000.”

“As alleged, this case is not simply about a city council seat. The people’s right to vote and to have their voices heard was subverted by what we allege to be an unlawful conspiracy,” said Attorney General Platkin. “This was unfair to the voters of Paterson. It was, as the grand jury charged, fraud and theft.”

“The tenacious, hard work of the investigators and prosecutors on this case uncovered new information about the lengths the defendants allegedly went to in an attempt to rig Paterson’s municipal election and cover up their conduct,” said Drew Skinner, Executive Director of OPIA.

Mendez was initially indicted on election fraud charges in 2021.

In 2023, new charges have been brought against him, his wife Yohanny Mendez, and two other Paterson residents, Omar Ledesma and Iris Rigo.

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Noncitizen Voting And Voter Fraud Schemes: DOJ Investigates Voting Crimes Across Multiple States And Elections

Within the last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced charges against multiple foreign nationals for illegally voting in American elections. The DOJ also revealed a foreign national pleaded guilty to conspiring in a voter registration fraud scheme.

As my colleague Beth Brelje reported, the DOJ announced Monday that 45-year-old Akeel Abdul Jamiel was charged with illegally voting in the 2020 election. Jamiel, an Iraqi, allegedly voted in the November 2020 election in Saratoga County, New York, despite not being a citizen. The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) contributed to the investigation, the DOJ noted.

Some 1,200 miles south, 32-year-old Uzbekistan national Sanjar Jamilov pleaded guilty to “conspiring to submit fraudulent voter registrations,” the DOJ announced Tuesday. Jamilov was originally charged earlier this year, and his “sentencing date has not yet been set.”

According to a plea agreement, the DOJ explained, the scheme began when 45-year-old Russian national Dmitry Shushlebin “hired Jamilov and others to submit more than 100 fraudulent voter registration applications to the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections in February and March 2023.” The applications used names other than those of the perpetrators and “bore various indicia of fraud,” like “repeat[ed] dates of birth and addresses,” as well as “nearly sequential Social Security numbers,” according to the DOJ. The applications were rejected after a county election supervisor detected fraud.

“Dmitry Shushlebin has been charged for his alleged role in this case. The case is currently pending,” the DOJ added.

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Iraqi Man Charged For Illegally Voting In U.S. Election Is Another ‘Rare’ Non-Citizen Voter

Oops, it happened again. Another non-citizen has been charged with voting in a federal election. The Department of Justice (DOJ) last week charged Akeel Abdul Jamiel, 45, with illegally voting in the 2020 election. Jamiel, a non-citizen from Iraq, voted in the November 2020 election in Saratoga County, New York, according to the DOJ.

The single page charging paper was filed by U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III in the Northern District of New York on April, 24. It simply reads, “Akeel Abdul Jamiel, an alien, fully knowing he was not a United States citizen, did knowingly vote in an election held in part for the purpose of electing a candidate for President, Vice President, and Member of the House of Representatives, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 611.” That is a “voting by aliens” charge which carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

The DOJ said the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) assisted in the Jamiel investigation, but did provide further detail.

Democrats and their propaganda press partners continue to resist passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility” (SAVE) Act, which would prevent non-citizens from voting in federal elections, saying non-citizens never, or only rarely, vote in U.S. elections. But the examples of non-citizens voting like this are plentiful, and each one points to an obvious conclusion: Our elections are vulnerable to rigging.

Earlier this week, Elections Correspondent Logan Washburn reported that a Chinese student in Michigan allegedly voted in November’s election. Haoxiang Gao, a University of Michigan student, skipped court and a judge issued a bench warrant to arrest him.

The SAVE Act, which has passed a House vote, awaits action in the Senate. SAVE would require states to get proof of citizenship, in person, before registering an individual to vote for a federal election. Under SAVE, citizens seeking voter registration would provide a REAL ID, U.S. Passport, military identification, birth certificate, or other forms of identification proving citizenship.

“Here is yet another reason why New York State should require identification to vote,” U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. said in a statement. She voted in support of the SAVE Act earlier this month and says her state laws also need attention. “New York remains one of the few states without any form of voter identification requirement. That is unacceptable. Every legal voter—regardless of party—deserves to know their vote is protected and not canceled out by fraud or abuse. Democrats continue to undermine election integrity—not only by pushing noncitizen voting but by relentlessly opposing basic voter ID laws.”

The New York State Court of Appeals recently struck down a law that allowed more than 800,000 noncitizens to vote in New York City elections, Stefanik said.  

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Senators, Don’t Fall For Hillary Clinton’s Desperate Lies About The SAVE Act

Last week, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 22, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which I proudly co-authored with my friend, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. The SAVE Act passed the House on a bipartisan basis, an inconvenient fact for Democrat leaders’ chosen narrative attacking it. 

Perhaps the most absurd narrative peddled from the left, including twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, is that the SAVE Act will somehow disenfranchise married women, or anyone else who has changed his or her name, from voting in federal elections. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. The SAVE Act secures all Americans’ votes by ensuring noncitizens do not vote in federal elections, effectively canceling out the votes of citizens, including married women.

The SAVE Act, a common-sense proposal widely supported by the American people, simply amends the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) to require documentary proof of citizenship to register individuals to vote in federal elections.

Those opposed to the SAVE Act have hurled wild accusations against the bill, comparing it to a “poll tax” or “Jim Crow 2.0.” This is nothing new; virtually every state that has passed election integrity laws has faced backlash from left-wing Democrats decrying the measures as racist. This ignores the fact that, for example, in Georgia, voting increased after the state implemented voter integrity measures. 

The left loves nothing more than invoking tiresome rhetorical tactics involving race or sex to stir up controversy against common-sense proposals. But Clinton’s argument that the SAVE Act will disenfranchise married women is not grounded in reality, and here’s why.

First, married women who have changed their name and already registered to vote — millions, mind you — are utterly unaffected by the SAVE Act. The so-called “69 million married women” figure is a statistical sleight of hand meant to purposefully ignite fear and conveniently glosses over this critical fact. As my friend Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., rightly pointed out during the House floor debate, this is a non-issue for those women, rendering the panic-peddling not just misleading but outright false. 

Second, for individuals who have changed their name and already updated their documentary proof of citizenship to reflect this, no action is needed, and they can register to vote.

For the small fraction of individuals who have not updated their documentation to reflect a name change — though most do so quickly for general life purposes such as an I-9 form for employment, passport to travel, and Social Security card for taxes — the SAVE Act explicitly directs states to establish a process allowing them to register to vote despite a name discrepancy. The SAVE Act specifically left this to the states because name-change procedures are governed by state law, and the specific requirements, forms, fees, and processes can vary from state to state. 

No one will be unable to vote because of a name change.

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North Carolina Supreme Court Allows 60K Votes Lacking ID To Count In High Court Race

The North Carolina Supreme Court decided to allow about 60,000 ballots to count in a race for a seat on its own bench, despite those voters never having provided proper identification upon registering.

A unanimous court Friday decided that over 60,000 votes challenged by Republican candidate and appellate judge Jefferson Griffin should remain in the count for the vote total. In a 4-2 split, the court also decided that another roughly 5,500 overseas voters who did not provide identification would be allowed 30 days to fix their ballots, while another 267 voters who have never resided in North Carolina would have their votes removed.

“This Court is aware of the valid competing interests in this case the need for an expeditious resolution of an election that occurred more than five months ago and the importance of ensuring that only lawful votes are counted,” the majority wrote.

Griffin’s race against incumbent Democrat Justice Allison Riggs, who is recused, is the last in the country to be decided from the Nov. 5, 2024, general election. On election night, Griffin was winning by about 10,000 votes, but over the following nine days, overseas and provisional ballots started trickling in to give Riggs a 734-vote lead.

Griffin challenged over 65,000 ballots because they were cast either by voters who had not provided a driver’s license or last four digits of a Social Security Number upon registering, in accordance with state law, or had not provided a photo ID upon casting their ballot as required in the state as well.

The discrepancy with incomplete registrations occurred because the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE), currently run by Democrats, failed their duty to ensure that citizens in the state were properly registered because it did not adequately inform them the identification was required.

“To the extent that the registrations of voters in the first category are incomplete, the Board is primarily, if not totally, responsible,” the decision states. And while the NCSBE learned of the issue in 2023, well before the 2024 election, the court noted it “did nothing, however, to ensure that any past violations were remedied.”

“The board’s inattention and failure to dutifully conform its conduct to the law’s requirements is deeply troubling,” the opinion continued. “Nevertheless, our precedent on this issue is clear. Because the responsibility for the technical defects in the voters’ registration rests with the Board and not the voters, the wholesale voiding of ballots cast by individuals who subsequently proved their identity to the Board by complying with the voter identification law would undermine the principle that ‘this is a government of the people, in which the will of the people — the majority — legally expressed, must govern.’”

The court distinguished between providing an approved form of identification upon registering, which is required by state and federal law, and another law requiring voter ID upon casting a ballot, which it says the challenged voters have done. North Carolina’s voter ID laws are notoriously weak.

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