Last month, four people, including Medina County Justice of the Peace Tomas Ramirez, were arrested and accused of 150 counts of voter/election fraud, which date back to the 2018 Medina County Primary Election.
Also arrested were Leonor Rivas Garza, Eva Ann Martinez, and Mary Balderrama. All were arrested in connection with alleged ballot harvesting at assisted living centers in Medina County in 2018. Ramirez, Garza and Martinez were indicted in Bandera County and turned themselves in according to a press release from the Texas Attorney General’s office.
Ramirez is charged with one count of organized election fraud, one count of unlawfully assisting voter voting ballot by mail and 17 counts of unlawful possession of a ballot or a ballot envelope. Ramirez was elected to the Justice of the Peace position in 2018. He is currently suspended from the position in light of the charges.
Ramirez vehemently denied the charges: “I was stunned by the allegations because there is absolutely no truth to them,” he told KENS5 in San Antonio. “I have spent the last 27 years building my law practice and serving in this community which has created my reputation for fairness, sincerity and integrity. I entered the race for [Justice of the Peace] because I wanted to serve Medina County and make the office function better for its citizens. I feel I have done exactly that up to this point. For people who know me, these allegations are absurd. To those who don’t, it provides reason to sneer and hate.”
Ramirez added, “I will vigorously defend myself to the fullest extent and I fully expect to be vindicated.”
Garza is charged with one count of organized election fraud, two counts of illegal voting, eight counts of illegal voting, two counts of election fraud and four counts of fraudulent use of an absentee ballot by mail.
Martinez faces one count of organized election fraud, nine counts of illegal voting, 28 counts of unlawful possession of a ballot or ballot envelope, three counts of purportedly acting as an agent, five counts of tampering with a government record, fourteen counts of election fraud and four counts of fraudulent mail ballot application.
Balderrama is charged with one count of organized election fraud, nine counts of illegal voting, two counts of unlawful possession of a ballot or ballot envelope, one count of mail ballot application, two counts of unlawfully assisting voter voting by mail, two counts of tampering with government record and eight counts of election fraud.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been busily going after election fraud in his state. In addition to the Medina County cases, the state also arrested Raquel Rodriguez in January, another alleged election fraudster who was featured in a Project Veritas video admitting that she received money from candidates in exchange for illegally procuring votes.
Rodriguez claimed to have politicians from both major parties and judges as clients. She also admitted to procuring votes for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
“Yeah, I’m getting the Biden vote out, but I mean, I’m not going to do it for free,” Rodriguez said on the Project Veritas video. Biden would end up losing Texas to former President Donald Trump.
At the time, Paxton said: “Many continue to claim that there’s no such thing as election fraud. We’ve always known that such a claim is false and misleading, and today we have additional hard evidence.”
Though he did not comment, specifically on the Texas voter fraud issues, former President Trump did address election fraud during his Sunday speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida.
“This election was rigged, and the Supreme Court and other courts didn’t want to do anything about it,” Trump said. “Had we had a fair election, the results would have been much different.”
Of course, fraud in elections isn’t unique to Texas. Evidence of voter irregularities abounded throughout the United States in the November 2020 election and in many state primaries prior to the general election.
The difference is that in Texas they’re addressing the issue; not denying it.
