Texas Ballot Harvesting Investigation Leads to Indictments of Former Democratic Officials
A major election integrity investigation in Texas has resulted in the indictment of nine individuals, including former Bexar County Democratic Party Chair Juan Manuel Medina, in connection with an alleged illegal vote-harvesting scheme.
Medina, a former San Antonio mayoral candidate, faces two felony counts of vote harvesting, as part of a broader probe led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Prosecutors claim that Medina coordinated efforts to collect votes on behalf of Cecilia Castellano, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for Texas House District 80 in 2024.
According to court documents, Medina allegedly offered compensation to Rachel Leal and Inelda Rodriguez, a former Dilley city council member, in exchange for their vote-harvesting services during the February 2024 election cycle. Castellano, Leal, and Rodriguez have also been indicted.
Castellano’s lawyer, Don Flanary, maintains her innocence, telling The Texas Tribune: “Cecilia didn’t do anything illegal. I don’t think the state will be able to prove otherwise.”
Five others were named in the indictment: former Pearsall Mayor Petra Davina Trevino, former Dilley Mayor Mary Ann Obregon, Susanna Flores Carrizales, Frio County Commissioner Raul Carrizales III, and Maricela Garcia Benavides, a school board secretary.
The charges stem from a months-long investigation in Frio County, which previously led to the raid of Medina’s home and the seizure of Castellano’s phone.
In a related effort, Paxton’s office recently launched a separate investigation into 33 individuals flagged as possible noncitizen voters during the 2024 election. These cases were referred by the Texas Secretary of State, who cited data from the DHS SAVE database, used to verify immigration and citizenship status.
This is not the first high-profile case of alleged ballot harvesting. In Arizona, two individuals were indicted in Yuma County for similar offenses stemming from the 2020 election. Then-Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Gloria Lopez Torres, a sitting San Luis City Council member, and Nadia Lizarraga-Mayorquin (aka Nadia Buchanan) were charged with conspiracy and ballot abuse after allegedly collecting early ballots from multiple voters and depositing them in a ballot box during the August 2020 municipal primary.
The Arizona grand jury alleged that Torres collected seven ballots from Lizarraga-Mayorquin, who in turn obtained at least one from an undisclosed third party.
Both states have treated ballot harvesting as a criminal offense, with Texas and Arizona citing it as a key target in efforts to bolster election security.