Ahead of November’s elections, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office has launched an illegal voting tip line.
The resource is an email address where the AG’s office said Texans can report suspected violations of state election law.
It comes a week after Paxton’s office executed search warrants at the homes of volunteers with a Hispanic voting rights group.
The AG’s office said these actions have been dedicated to ensuring the security of Texas elections. However, some political experts said the numbers do not support claims of widespread voter fraud in the state.
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In the announcement of the tipline, Paxton cited the motivation behind the move as “significant growth of the noncitizen population in Texas and a pattern of partisan efforts to weaponize voter registration illegally … have created urgent risks to local, state, and federal elections.”
“Suddenly, the temperature has increased,” said Carlos Rovelo, an SMU political science professor.
The release of the new tipline came eight days after Paxton’s office executed search warrants at the Bexar County homes of volunteers with LULAC, a Latino advocacy group.
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The AG’s office said the warrants concerned “allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting that occurred during the 2022 elections.”
Opponents said the move was an effort to intimidate Latino voters and have called for a DOJ investigation into the action.
“We’ve seen this show from this crooked Ken Paxton over and over again, and it is only voter suppression and voter intimidation,” said Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-TX19.
NBC 5 interviewed political experts and asked them how strong the evidence is that widespread voter fraud is happening in Texas.
“The element of weaponizing voter registration lacks history,” said Rovelo.
An NBC investigation found that from 2004 to 2020, 150 people were charged with voter fraud in Texas.
Records from conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation found in the last five years in Texas, seven people have been convicted of election fraud.
Some experts said that, compared to the state’s population, those records didn’t support claims of significant voter fraud in Texas, and claims to the contrary could be politically motivated.
“In Texas, immigration is an issue that takes people to the ballots,” said Rovelo. “Whether it is out of fear or out of convictions.”
Last week, Paxton’s office also announced an investigation into allegations that groups in the Fort Worth area were registering large groups of undocumented people to vote. Some political experts told NBC 5 that these actions could ramp up as we close in on Election Day in November.
