Thread by @srl

Last month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's (R) office made a striking claim: The "sheer number" of voter fraud prosecutions it has brought in the last year is evidence that voter fraud is a problem in Texas. big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/athena/files/2…

Since early 2018, Paxton's office has brought 33 cases. His office frequently touts this statistic to show an escalating crackdown on election fraud in Texas. e.g. texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/…

.@dliebelson and I set out to find out what exactly happened in these 33 cases. We found that 30 of them were resolved with what's called a prosecution diversion agreement. These agreements are used when a prosecutor thinks a case is minor and/or they don't have a strong case

@dliebelson We spoke to several former prosecutors and defense lawyers. All of them agreed a prosecutor would not give a prosecution diversion agreement if they thought someone was engaged in systemic voter fraud and likely to reoffend again. We wrote about this here huffpost.com/entry/texas-at…

@dliebelson Then we set out to find out what happened in the remaining 3 cases. Two of the cases involved women in Nueces County who pled guilty to election fraud charges last summer. texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/…

@dliebelson We obtained transcripts for the plea hearings for both women. I strongly encourage you to read them. In one hearing, Lance Kutnick, the prosecutor from the AG's office, conceded they actually couldn't prove the most serious charges against the woman. assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5979…

@dliebelson The AG's office also explained why it wasn't going after a broader systemic election fraud scheme. assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5979…

@dliebelson The woman, Ms. Gonzalez, did eventually plead guilty. But it was for an offense much more minor than what she was charged with. She pled guilty to not properly indicating she assisted a voter with his mail in ballot. There was no guilty plea to tampering or influencing his vote

@dliebelson The second woman, Ms. Flores, is in her 70s. Her son was running for constable and she was helping him. But in the election where she was charged with doing something illegal, her son was running unopposed. The prosecutor seemed confused assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5979…

@dliebelson Again, the AG's office conceded they could only prove far less than what Ms. Flores was charged with. Ms. Flores did eventually plead guilty, and went to jail for a few days (as did Ms. Gonzalez) but it was far less severe than original charges assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5979…

@dliebelson There was a third man who was charged with Ms. Flores and Ms. Gonzalez. He didn't plead guilty and went to trial. We didn't get into his case because it was pending as we were reporting. But he was acquitted last week. kristv.com/news/local-new…

@dliebelson Going back to Paxton's 33 cases. Our reporting shows that 32/33 appear to be relatively minor offenses. The one outstanding case is a woman who pled guilty to stealing another woman's identity. She was sentenced to prison and then ordered deported chron.com/news/politics/…

@dliebelson The woman's lawyer did not respond to several requests for comment and the court clerk said he had waived her right to have a court reporter at the plea hearing. If you have information about this case -- contact me or Dana

@dliebelson So what? Why are the details of these cases significant? They suggest that even though Paxton is highlighting an increase in the number of cases, the details of those cases actually suggest the offenses were minor. Our story on this is here: huffpost.com/entry/texas-is…

@dliebelson Paxton's office is also asking the Texas legislature for money to expand the election fraud unit in his office. And Texas lawmakers are considering a bill to stiffen penalties for election offenses.

@dliebelson Also, many of the offenses we looked at involve voting by mail, an area where there is an opportunity for nefarious stuff. But the rules around mail in balloting in TX are confusing. Are there ways the state could stop bad activity w/o criminal charges?

@dliebelson Anyway you can read our story from Friday here: huffpost.com/entry/texas-is…

And our earlier story from April here: huffpost.com/entry/texas-at…

@dliebelson You can read the transcripts we obtained here:

Cynthia Kay Gonzalez: documentcloud.org/documents/5979…

Rosa Flores: documentcloud.org/documents/5979…

@dliebelson And if you have more information about these cases -- or any other election fraud prosecutions in Texas -- you can email me at [e-mail]