Recent charges alleging that four women are part of an organized voter fraud ring on the city’s north side — announced just weeks before the Nov. 6 midterm election — are political moves geared to diminish minority voting in one of the state’s reddest counties, two attorneys allege. “They are political footballs being kicked back and forth by people who have a vested interest in suppressing minority vote,” said Greg Westfall, who along with Frank Sellers is representing one of the women, Leticia Sanchez Tepichin. “They are mothers and grandmothers. They are active in the community. “They are being used by people who want to justify voter ID,” he said. “At the end of the day, there’s not going to be any fraud in this deal.” These comments come one week after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office announced that four people were arrested — Tepichin, her mother Leticia Sanchez, Maria Solis and Laura Parra — after being indicted on dozens of felony counts of voter fraud.
The women allegedly were paid to target older voters on the north side “in a scheme to generate a large number of mail ballots and then harvest those ballots for specific candidates in 2016,” according to the AG’s statement. “The timeline speaks to this being political,” Westfall said.
He and Sellers note that news reports first were published about the state’s investigation regarding voter fraud in Tarrant County in October 2016, weeks before that year’s presidential election.
And news of the indictments and arrests came this month, just weeks before the 2018 midterm election.
Full Article: Attorneys: Fraud charges an attempt to suppress Texas vote | Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
