A Latino voting rights group called Monday for a federal investigation after its volunteers said Texas authorities raided their homes seizing their phones and computers. The raid appears to be part of an investigation by the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office into allegations of voter fraud.
According to the Associated Press, Paxton previously confirmed that his office had conducted searches after a local prosecutor referred to his office “allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting” during the 2022 election. However, no charges have been filed against any targets of the searches that took place last week in the San Antonio area.
After this, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a civil rights organization, denounced the raids and called for a federal investigation.
“We feel like our votes are being suppressed,” Roman Palomares, national president of the LULAC said. “We’re going to get to the bottom of it.”
Palomares added that at least six members had their homes searched, including the house of 80-year-old Lidia Martinez.
“They sat me down and they started searching all my house, my store room, my garage, kitchen, everything,” Martinez said.
The agents then interrogated her about other members of the organization.
“I’m not doing anything illegal,” Martinez said she told agents. “All I do is help the seniors.”
Another member whose house was searched is Manuel Medina, a San Antonio political consultant. He claimed his home was searched for several hours while agents seized documents, computers and cellphones. Medina is the former head of the Bexar County Democratic Party and is working on the campaign of Democratic state House candidate Cecilia Castellano, whose home was also searched.
The AP noted that voter fraud is rare and often occurs in isolated instances. It also noted that it is generally detected. The news agency conducted an investigation of the 2020 presidential election and found fewer than 475 potential cases of voter fraud out of 25.5 million ballots cast in the six states where Trump and his allies disputed his loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.
