4 accused in ‘vote harvesting scheme’
The Texas attorney general's office and the Gregg County district attorney have filed felony charges against a county commissioner and three alleged accomplices in what officials are calling an “organized vote harvesting scheme” during the 2018 Democratic primary.
A grand jury returned indictments against the four — Commissioner Shannon Brown and his wife, Marlena Jackson, as well as Charlie Burns and Dewayne Ward — on charges including engaging in organized election fraud, illegal voting and fraudulent use of an application for a mail-in ballot.
State District Court Judge Alfonso Charles in Longview said bail was set at $25,000 for each defendant, according to the Longview News-journal.
According to a copy of their indictments, the group helped voters lie about whether they were disabled, giving them access to mail-in ballots to which they would not have otherwise been entitled, as well as voting assistance. Texas is one of seven states in which all voters are not eligible for mail ballots and need an excuse to get one if they are under 65 years old.
The scheme is alleged to have helped Brown beat his primary opponent, Kasha Williams, by just five votes on his way to winning his seat on the commission. Brown's win was confirmed in a recount, and Williams later filed a civil suit alleging mail-in voting fraud.
The News-journal reported that county elections administrator Kathryn Nealy also had questioned the disproportionate number of mail-in ballots in the race and said she suspected voter fraud in May 2018; later that month, local officials announced that they were investigating.
It is not yet clearwhy getting an indictment in the case took two and a half years; Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the charges in a news release late Thursday with few details.
“This case demonstrates my commitment to ensuring Texas has the most secure elections in the country, and I thank the Gregg County sheriff and district attorney for their continued partnership,” Paxton said in a statement. “Those who try to manipulate the outcome of elections in Texas must be held accountable.”
The majority of the counts, or 97, were filed against Jackson, while 23 were filed against Brown, eight against Burns and six against Ward.
In the suit Williams filed in 2018, she alleged that a group of vote harvesters had been operating in the county for years and charged candidates fees for producing mail-in ballots. Williams' attorney, Buck Wood, who has since died and who helped draft Texas ethics and election laws, wrote in the complaint that in his 40-plus years of experience, he had only seen one other similar instance of fraud.
The suit cited Facebook photos of voters who had claimed theywere disabled on their mail-in ballot applications and said they “clearly show” that the people were not disabled.
The charges come as President Donald Trump and Republicans who lead the state government in Texas allege that mail-in voting is more susceptible to fraud, though prosecution of such cases remains low and academic studies have shown that such fraud is extremely rare.
During the 14-year period from 2005 through 2018, the Texas attorney general's election fraud office has prosecuted 135 people, according to the most recent data available. In 2019, the office prosecuted five people. Most of them have been minor cases that ended with the defendants sent to diversion programs.