A Texas felon convicted for his actions during the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has nonetheless been able to renew his Texas voter registration.
Christian Glen Cortez of Seabrook can be seen on an Instagram video advancing into the capitol building and at one point appearing to threaten a capitol police officer. Cortez can be heard on the video screaming “Fuck you! Oath breakers! Oath breakers! You’re a fuckin’ oath breaker!”
Cortez was arrested after someone recognized him on the video. In May 2022, he pled guilty to obstruction of a law enforcement officer during a civil disorder, a felony. The defendant was sentenced to four months in prison, three years of supervised release, 60 hours of community service and ordered to pay a combined $2,100 in fines.
Texas does allow felons to vote, but only after they have completed the full terms of their sentence. Cortez has finished his period of incarceration but is still under supervised release per the terms of his deal. Supervised release is still part of the sentence as per current Texas law.
Nonetheless, Cortez successfully registered to vote in Harris County. Online county records show that he likely renewed his voter registration sometime in 2023. His current registration is valid from January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2025. It is unknown whether he has since voted in any primaries or elections.
The fact that Cortez was able to renew his registration is curious considering Attorney General Ken Paxton’s long and often fruitless crusade against voter fraud. It has been an article of faith for Texas Republicans that the 2020 and 2024 election cycles were rife with fake votes, mostly for Democrats.
No evidence claiming to prove this widespread voter fraud has ever survived even cursory challenge. Paxton has spent millions of taxpayer dollars pursuing voter fraud cases. Instead of a widespread conspiracy by Democrats to steal elections, he mostly found a handful of cases, many of which were the results of errors rather than intention malfeasance.
A good example of Texas’s typical approach to voter fraud is Crystal Mason. The Austin woman cast a provisional ballot during the 2016 presidential election while being on supervised release for a tax fraud conviction. Note, this is the same condition Cortez is currently under. She was arrested in 2018 as the American right began under former president, current candidate, and convicted felon himself, Donald Trump, to inflate the idea of widespread voter fraud.
The state came after Mason hard, and she was sentenced to five years in prison. That sentence was finally overturned in March when the Second Court of Appeals determined that Mason had not intended to break the law.
Paxton’s office did not reply to an email asking if he would be pursuing action against Cortez for registering to vote and presumably intending to vote despite being unable to do so legally in Texas. Surely he would be happy to stop someone from voting when they aren’t allowed to, even if it is someone that comes from his side of the political spectrum.
