Texas Border City Mayor Arrested on Voter Fraud Charges

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On Thursday morning, Edinburg Mayor Richard Molina and his wife, Dalia, walked into a local Texas Department of Public Safety building to face charges for an “illegal voting scheme” occurring in the 2017 mayoral election, according to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

A news release summarizes allegations that Molina and his wife “had numerous voters” change their residential addresses into the jurisdiction – including the apartment complex he owns – for the express purpose of voting for Molina in the November 7, 2017, election. The “vote harvesting” scheme, as Paxton’s office describes it, involved the participation of paid campaign workers. Molina won the election by 1,240 votes, unseating long-time incumbent Richard Garcia.

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There have been a total of 18 other arrests in connection with the 2017 Edinburg city election. These arrests were part of an ongoing investigation into an alleged coordinated effort by political workers to recruit people to fraudulently claim residential addresses in other jurisdictions. One of the individuals accused of illegally voting in that election included a previously convicted human smuggler.

Edinburg is part of the Rio Grande Valley, a region with a long history of voter fraud allegations and convictions including the 2012 primary election in Donna, where various individuals were convicted of using cocaine and marijuana to buy votes, Breitbart News reported at the time.

The Rio Grande Valley area also made national news before the 2018 election when the Public Interest Legal Foundation released a complaint to county and state officers regarding “altered” voter registration forms circulated by the Texas Democratic Party that were directed to noncitizen residents. The applications featured pre-printed claims of U.S. citizenship. The Texas Secretary of State referred the matter to the Texas Attorney General’s Election Fraud Unit.

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