
Two Texas activist groups, Houston Votes and Texans Together Education Fund, were accused Tuesday of an organized voter fraud campaign by Harris County Voter Registrar Leo Vasquez, who likened the groups to the now-discredited ACORN.
“The integrity of the voting rolls in Harris County, Texas, appears to be under an organized and systematic attack by the group operating under the name Houston Votes,” Vasquez said at a 2 p.m. press conference at his office, where he also released copies of applications in some of the most egregious cases.
Houston Votes is the get-out-the-vote arm of the Texans Together Education Fund.
Editors Note: See the full Texas Watchdog story on this by clicking here.
“Evidence shows that the Houston Votes and Texans Together organization are conspiring on a pattern of falsification of government documents, supporting perjury in a deliberate effort to overburden our processing system," he said.
Vasquez said he is turning evidence over to the Secretary of State’s office and the Harris County District Attorney’s office for further action.
Sean Caddle, the director of Houston Votes, admitted that there may have been “mistakes made” by his vote gathering team but said Houston Votes did nothing wrong and called it a legitimate program.
However, after Caddle was shown examples of Houston Votes workers registering one name – Carmella Bellazer – with the same date of birth six times on the same day, he said “that probably would be a clear case of fraud.”
Caddle is a former SEIU worker from New Jersey and also recently worked in Colorado as part of a voter registration effort there.
Texans Together head Fred Lewis said that he has worked with Vasquez to clear up any discrepancies until recently.
"He is a liar and a political hack," Lewis said. "We are going to the Justice Department to make sure he doesn't make a mockery of the voting process."
Look for more updates on this story later today at www.texaswatchdog.org.
Contact Steve Miller at 832-303-9420 or stevemiller@texaswatchdog.org. Trent Seibert contributed to this report.
Photo of a 'Vote here' sign by flickr user Lester Public Library, used via a Creative Commons license.
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