Mexican woman stole American’s identity to vote in elections: Texas AG
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Monday, May 14, 2018
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday he will prosecute a Mexican woman charged with stealing an American citizen’s identity and then using it to cast ballots in three presidential election years.
Laura Janeth Garza was spotted after the American woman went to get a passport, only to have the State Department discover Ms. Garza had already gotten one in her identity. Federal officials alerted Texas, which conducted a probe and found Ms. Garza also illegally registered to vote and cast ballots in 2004, 2012 and 2016, Mr. Paxton said.
“This case demonstrates my office’s commitment to protecting the integrity of elections,” the attorney general said in a statement announcing the prosecution.
She is being charged with two counts of illegal voting, both stemming from the 2016 election, according to indictments from Montgomery County, north of Houston.
If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison.
The case is one of more extreme cases of possible voter fraud, and it comes at a time when the existence of the problem is hotly debated. President Trump has argued — with scant evidence — that the extent of fraudulent voting was perhaps 3 million votes in 2016.
Some analysts have calculated a level of fraudulent voting does exist, though much lower than Mr. Trump’s claims.
The president created a White House commission to study voter fraud last year, then disbanded it in January after it bogged down in messy legal fights, stumbles over its operations and resistance from state officials over whether to provide data that could shed light on the extent of fraud.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation has found thousands of instances of voter fraud in Virginia and New Jersey after obtaining state records showing people who had been registered to vote then later canceled their registration, saying they actually weren’t citizens.
Those people usually appear to have signed up to vote while prodded to do so at a state motor vehicles bureau. Some of them then went on to actually cast ballots, according to the PILF’s research.
The PILF is also currently battling Harris County, Texas, which borders Montgomery County, for access to its voting records.
Harris County Voter Registrar Ann Harris Bennett argues she’s only required to make public those people removed from her rolls because they’ve died or changed residence — not people who have been removed because they aren’t citizens.
The PILF says every court that’s ruled on the matter has disagreed with Ms. Bennett’s position.
Mr. Paxton has also weighed in on that case, urging a state court to allow the PILF to look at the records.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...vote-election/
Mexican National Stole Texan’s Identity and Voted Three Times, Says AG
by MERRILL HOPE
14 May 2018
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that his office will prosecute a Mexican national who, allegedly, voted in three elections to include the 2016 presidential.
Laura Janeth Garza, 38, is not a United States citizen and she stands accused of two counts of election fraud–voter impersonation and ineligible voting. On May 10, a Montgomery County grand jury indicted Garza for her purportedly illegal voting activities in Harris County. In addition to voting in the 2016 presidential election, the Mexican national also reportedly cast ballots in 2004 and 2012. The AG’s office released the indictment Monday.
“This case demonstrates my office’s commitment to protecting the integrity of elections,” said Paxton in a written statement. “We will continue to do everything in our power to safeguard the electoral process in Texas.”
A joint investigation conducted by the Texas AG’s office and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) determined that Garza obtained documents to steal the identity of a U.S. citizen and illegally register to vote in Harris County, according to a press release from Paxton.
The two state agencies continue to work together on the case. Information about this matter surfaced when a female American citizen attempted to obtain a U.S. passport. However, she learned that Garza had already done so using this woman’s identity. As a result, the U.S. State Department referred Garza’s case to the Criminal Investigations Division of DPS, which, subsequently, handed it over to the Office of the Attorney General for an election fraud investigation.
Authorities arrested Garza on May 11. Montgomery County Jail records show she remains behind bars on $150,000 bond. The two counts of voter fraud are considered second degree felonies. Each charge carries a $75,000 bond. If convicted, Garza faces up to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel for the Public Legal Interest Foundation (PILF), commended Paxton on the announcement that his office will prosecute Garza for alleged voter impersonation and ineligible voting in Harris County.
“This case demonstrates clearly why we must have improved transparency from Harris County on questions related to ineligible voting,” said Adams in a prepared statement. “A Mexican national stands accused of impersonating a U.S. citizen and voting three times – largely thanks to a broken honor system which local officials do not feel compelled to answer for.” He continued, “Citizens deserve protections against illegal activities like alleged and transparency is the first step towards ensuring them.”
Currently, the foundation is engaged in federal and state lawsuits to obtain records belong to former registrants who were officially discovered or self-reported their ineligible noncitizen status on Harris County voter rolls. Recently, Paxton urged a state court judge to facilitate the PILF’s request after Harris County sued over a relatively unfavorable ruling that noncitizen records should be disclosed under Texas law. Last week, the watchdog law firm responded to the county’s claims suggesting that it had no right to date related to noncitizen voter registrants and that the federal case should be stayed pending a state court judgment in Austin, among other matters.
Similarly, the PILF put Bexar County on federal notice earlier this year for failing to disclose noncitizen registered voter records, as was reported by Breitbart Texas.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2018/...times-says-ag/
