Tarrant County Election Integrity Task Force considering 3 cases of alleged fraud
Prosecutors from the Tarrant County Election Integrity Task Force are considering three cases of alleged electoral fraud from 2023 for presentation to a grand jury, according to the team’s lead prosecutor.
In an exclusive interview with the Star-Telegram, Glynis McGinty, the head of the district attorney’s arm of the task force, said the sheriff’s office referred three of more than 70 complaints it received in 2023.
Tarrant County voters cast a total of 156,220 ballots in state and local elections, according to county records. There were more than 1.25 million registered voters in Tarrant County in 2023.
McGinty did not provide details about the three possible cases, citing the ongoing investigations by DA investigators, and could not give a timeline of when they might be brought before a grand jury.
The types of complaints the task force received included “people taking pictures at polling sites, people being within 100 feet of the polling site, just those types of concerns,” she said.
She did not say how many DA investigators are working on the cases, but said that their work on other cases has not been affected by the task force’s investigations.
“As prosecutors in general, we are used to juggling cases,” said McGinty, a Republican candidate for criminal district judge who is facing William Knight in the March 5 primary.
A sheriff’s department spokesperson confirmed the numbers of complaints received and cases referred to the DA. The complaints the department received included “everything from rude polling place employees to the legitimacy of candidates on the ballot,” he said in an email exchange.
McGinty’s message to voters during the upcoming elections is “if you see something, say something.”
James Slattery, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said that such messaging can be “very dangerous and reckless” and encourage people to accuse others of baseless crimes.
“We’ve seen in recent years conspiracy theories arise from people looking at the election process, not understanding what they’re seeing, and reading into the process their own biases, their own preconceived worries, their own inclinations to believe that there’s a problem in elections,” Slattery said.
People of color are most likely to be affected by such initiatives, he added.
McGinty did not agree that her messaging could lead to voter intimidation.
“My job is to prosecute violations of the election code if it is brought to my office or referred to me from the sheriff’s department,” she said.
Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare fulfilled a campaign promise to form the task force last February. In April, he encouraged Republican voters to take advantage of low voter turnout while discussing the task force at a meeting hosted by the True Texas Project.
This story was originally published February 16, 2024 at 12:31 PM.
