Newly released undercover footage appears to reveal a ballot harvesting operation in San Antonio, collecting votes for Democrat candidates.
Project Veritas, known for their unique brand of covert journalism, released the video on Tuesday, which shows a ballot chaser named Raquel Rodriguez as she illegally harvests mail ballots, offers gifts for their completion, and admits that what she is doing is illegal.
In one clip, she is shown apparently helping a voter change her vote from Republican John Cornyn to Democrat M.J. Hegar.
“What I do—picking up those ballots when he was with me—that’s illegal. I could go to jail. I’m a little apprehensive to tell anybody what I’m [expletive] doing, you know what I’m saying?” Rodriguez explains in the video.
Rodriquez also says she can bring at least 7,000 voters to the polls.
BREAKING: TX “Republican" consultant & ‘Ballot Chaser’ ILLEGALLY pressures voter to change vote to Dem candidate with GIFT!
“If I go to prison, I do not look cute in stripes…I will hate you forever.”
“You know on here you chose a Rep, not a Dem right?”#RiggedElection pic.twitter.com/npn4CbJzIi
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 27, 2020
It’s an operation that Project Veritas CEO James O’Keefe says could be positioned to swing Texas in 2020.
After the video was released, Rodriguez released a statement in which she claimed she was engaging in her own investigation against the journalists, who she claims acted suspiciously.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, however, says his office is already reviewing the potential election fraud shown in the video.
“What’s shown in the video is shocking and should alarm all Texans who care about election integrity. We are aggressively investigating the serious allegations and potential crimes that Project Veritas’s documentary audio and video recordings shed light on today. My office is fiercely committed to ensuring that the voting process is secure and fair in all Texas elections—a process that this video unfortunately casts a shadow of doubt on,” said Paxton.
“Election integrity has been a top priority of mine since I first took office in 2015. Anyone who attempts to defraud the people of Texas, deprive them of their vote, or undermine the integrity of elections will be brought to justice and penalized to the fullest extent of the law.”
Though Rodriguez is also employed as a consultant for Republican congressional candidate Mauro Garza, a San Antonio nightclub owner, Republican Party of Texas Chairman Allen West said the Texas GOP “wholeheartedly condemned” the actions in the video.
“The actions on this tape must be investigated by Texas law enforcement. Those who violate Texas election law should be punished accordingly in order to preclude future actions such as this. It’s quite regrettable that anyone would resort to such measures rather than winning on the merit of principles and the issues,” said West.
