Reliably, Immigrants Were Cast As Election Day Bogeyman In Texas

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Gov. Greg Abbott has called for an investigation into alleged illegal voting by immigrants after conservative operatives posted a video said to show Travis County elections workers urging non-citizens to vote at Tuesday's election.

Project Veritas posted the video, which led the governor to launch a probe on the very day he awaited the final tally of votes ensuring him a second term. A caveat, though: Project Veritas is widely considered something of a fringe group, having long produced creatively edited videos to make it appear something occurred that didn't — tactics that have led many to discredit the body of their work.

Even Abbott acknowledged he had no way of judging the veracity of the video, even while calling for the investigation: “I can’t verify if this is accurate,” Abbott acknowledged in a tweet. “I CAN verify that it will be investigated and if it IS accurate, illegal votes will be tossed out and wrongdoers will be prosecuted.”

Posted on Tuesday, the video recorded a woman asking Travis County poll workers off-camera if her boyfriend — who she describes as a beneficiary of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — can vote.

DACA is a policy that allows some people brought into the U.S. illegally as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation while becoming eligible for work permits. The woman in the video adds that her boyfriend, who's not seen in the video, is registered voter. As is widely known, non-citizens of the U.S are not able to vote in an American election. A similar video has a male protagonist asking if his DACA-recipient girlfriend can vote.

One of the poll workers responds that registered voters are able to vote in a U.S. election. Another poll worker wonders aloud why the boyfriend isn't asking the questions himself. The video depicts the exchange between the poll workers and the woman, yet at no point shows anyone voting illegally.

However, those believing the video as having uncovered illegal voting have zeroed in on an exchange heard on the video when one of the poll workers tells the woman: "No, you tell him no," about his purported concerns related to his ability to vote as a non-citizen recipient of DACA. "We got a lot of 'em," the elections worker tells the woman, referencing the early voting period that ran from Oct. 22 to Nov. 2. "We got tons of them."

Stop the tape, hold up, a top elections official inferred

Travis County chief deputy clerk Ronald Morgan Jr., told the Austin American-Statesman his office has referred the matter to the district attorney's office, suggesting Project Veritas may have violated state election law prohibiting electronic devices near polling places. The Texas Election Code bans wireless communications devices within 100 feet of voting stations. The same law further prohibits use of mechanical or electronic devices to record sound or images within 100 feet of voting stations.

Morgan added that the Project Veritas video is "distorting reality," insisting his poll workers acted professionally. The worker encouraging voting by a DACA recipient may have been unfamiliar with the alternative term of "Dreamer" in framing her response as one widely used to refer to those benefiting from the DACA program, he explained.

Morgan also took the governor to task for exploiting the Veritas recording for personal political gain. Abbott has long used immigrants as something of a political bogeyman to great political in a largely conservative state where foreigners are viewed warily in many of its pockets. Although long married to a granddaughter of Mexican migrants, Abbott has a particular aversion to immigration, championing the recently passed Senate Bill 4 that amounts to a crackdown.

In its original iteration, SB 4 called for harsh punitive measures in the form of fines and even jail time against police chiefs and sheriffs perceived as too soft on enforcing immigration policies — never mind that it's the job of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to determine what's to be done with residents found without citizenship papers.

Abbott returned to this tried-and-true formula demonizing immigrants in his latest run for re-election. But whereas Donald Trump categorizes people flowing into the U.S. from the southern border largely as "rapists" and "criminals," Abbott opts to paint the influx as comprising "gangs" and "drug cartels" as illustrated in one of his political ads airing ahead of the Nov. 6 election:

As for taking on the poll workers caught on tape purportedly endorsing voting among the DACA=eligible, Morgan took the governor to task for exploiting the incident for political gain.

“It’s unfortunate that the governor has chosen to publicize the work of an alt-right, fringe group run by a convicted criminal to score cheap political points at the expense of poll workers,” Morgan told the Statesman. "Particularly, when really this just serves as him perpetuating rumors on social media.”

Project Veritas strikes again

The video is the latest splashy production for Project Veritas, known for targeting progressive politicians and members of the mainstream media — both frequent targets of conservatives as scapegoats for a litany of societal ills. But Project Veritas has never let facts get in the way of a good story, selectively editing their video to illustrate parallel realities and liberally employing false claims in presenting their "investigative journalism" efforts.

James O'Keefe, founder of Project Veritas, was convicted of a misdemeanor in 2010 for entering government property with false information. He was arrested and pleaded guilty for entering the federal office of former U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La) under fake pretenses.

O'Keefe also produced videos purportedly showing workers at the now-defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) aiding a couple in criminal planning. Without checking its veracity as Abbott has now done with the group's latest video, some members of Congress immediately voted to freeze funds to the non-profit in eventually shuttering the organization. Yet a subsequent investigation showed O'Keefe had misrepresented the ACORN workers' actions, and further found they had broken no laws.

One of those workers later sued O'Keefe for invasion of privacy, leading to a rare public apology from the Project Veritas founder and an agreement to pay a $100,000 settlement. Before the dismantling of ACORN over the subsequently discredited videos, the advocacy organization ACORN had aided people of low and moderate income for 40 years.

Despite that sketchy past, Abbott has opted to launch an investigation into the newest Project Veritas claims, even while acknowledging not having vetted the information alleging illegal voting. But that's par for the course in Texas, where fear or animus of immigrants crossing the southern border has yielded a galvanizing issue in energizing a conservative political base.

Rise of Trump breathes new life to illegal voting myth

The idea of widespread illegal voting is hardly a new trope in certain Texas political circles, but one that has gained new energy with the ascendancy of Donald Trump. Shortly after winning the presidency in November 2016, he claimed to have not only won the Electoral College vote, but the popular one as well were it not for the "millions of people" who voted illegally, he tweeted.

Trump actually lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes, hence his suspicion they were fraudulent. But he never provided proof of his claims, and a promised investigation into voter fraud — including that by "those who are illegal" never materialized.

But it's breathed new life into the myth of voting by the undocumented.

In reality, voting fraud is exceedingly rare

Despite the governor's insistence of widespread voting fraud in Texas — particularly among undocumented immigrants as he often suggests occurs — actual incidences of such fraud are exceedingly rare, hardly the rampant problem painted by the governor and his allies. So negligible are such cases, they cannot be statistically measured.

Numerous studies have shown the rarity of voter fraud, despite many conservative politicians' claims. A May 2017 report by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice found a grand total of 30 incidents of suspected non-citizen voting referred for further investigation — our of more than 23 million votes processed across 42 jurisdictions.

Despite the hype. the truth, as PolitiFact found, is that it's likelier to be struck by lightning in Texas than to find a case of voter fraud.

Like playing the lottery, sometimes they land one

In the rare case an actual occurrence of voter fraud is found, prosecution is touted with headlines suffused with an urgency normally associated with war declarations. Take the case of Rosa Maria Ortega, 37, of Grand Prairie, Texas, just outside of Dallas. The mother of four who was brought into the U.S. from Mexico as an infant, was found to have falsely claimed U.S. citizenship on a voter registration form in Dallas County before casting ballots five times between 2004 and 2014.

The woman's attorney acknowledged to the New York Times his client voted illegally but maintains she never meant to break the law. Some government forms allow applicants to declare permanent residency status, but the voting application in neighboring Tarrant County, where Ortega subsequently moved, had no such option to check off. Lacking the choice, she checked off the "citizen" box, he explained.

Never having been formally educated beyond the sixth grade, the woman was sentenced to eight years in prison for her transgression, fined $5,000 and will likely be deported. Abbott and his attorney general Ken Paxton (who also won re-election on Tuesday) took to Twitter to laud the woman's imprisonment. "In Texas you will pay a price for Voter Fraud: Noncitizen Sentenced to 8 Years in prison for Illegal Voting. #txlege," Abbott tweeted at the time, attaching a story on the case from Fox News.

For his part, Paxton framed the case as an example of efforts to safeguard the sacrosanct nature of the electoral process. "This case shows how serious Texas is about keeping its elections secure, and the outcome sends a message that violators of the state's election law will be prosecuted to the fullest," he wrote in a press release. "Evidence was presented showing that she attempted to register in Tarrant County, but election officials rejected her application after she admitted she was a non-citizen,"

What Paxton failed to note in his press release is was that Ortega didn't necessarily fit the profile of the undocumented voter he and others advance. Identifying as a Republican, she voted for fellow Republicans when she cast her offending ballots — including, ironically enough, voting for Paxton when he ran for his present post in 2014.

Related story: Amid Pols' Claims Of Rampant Voter Fraud, Mexican Woman Draws 8-Year Prison Sentence In Texas

University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus agreed Ortega wasn't exactly out of Central Casting as the embodiment of an illegal voter focused on malfeasance, and doesn't exactly confirm a perceived trend: "It's clear this is not the blockbuster case they need to make in proving voter fraud," he told Patch at the time in telephone interview. "They would need pockets of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, involved in this illegal activity and a specific leader or organization to claim there is a significant amount of voter fraud. This is not it."

What's more, the woman targeted by Paxton told media outlets she believed she was able to vote legally, rendering the case more one rooted in voter confusion than fraud, the professor said: "This is not consistent with general patterns of what people call voter fraud. This was more in the realm of voter confusion than it was voter fraud."

Even conservative pundits expressed skepticism while questioning the justification for so harsh a punishment. "I'm a law & order person and support voter ID," Bill Kristol, editor at large of the conservative magazine Weekly Standard, tweeted. "But this sentence is nuts, & it's unseemly for the Texas governor to be chest-beating about it."

Despite the dearth of voter fraud, myth continues

And yet, every election cycle, the myth of caravans of undocumented voters voting for Democrats emerges in Texas as reliably as the appearance each February of Punxsutawney Phil in predicting the length of winter from his namesake Pennsylvania town.

This election cycle was no different. Amid record-breaking voter turnout on Tuesday, Larry Schweikart, a retired professor of history and co-author of the No. 1 New York Times best-seller "A Patriot’s History of the United States," issued a breathlessly urgent tweet: "Hearing two busses [sic] near TX border stopped with 'Beto' signs, full of illegals, each had $100 and were headed to the polls."

Compelling imagery aside (including the signs supporting El Paso, Texas, Congressman Beto O'Rourke who came close to unseating Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday), the story is decidedly false. Reached by BuzzFeed News, Schweikart conceded as much, but not before sharing the tweet with his 50,000 followers. He ran with the message after reading about it on Freerepublic.com, a conservative source that aggregates and hosts discussion forums, he explained.

But other than a discussion thread that began when someone posted a link to Schweikart's tweet, no evidence exists of the bus-riding, Beto-sign-carrying, $100-bill-clutching undocumented immigrants making a beeline for the voting site.

Oh well, Schweikart essentially said when challenged by BuzzFeed News in a figurative, sheepish shrugging of the shoulders: "Well, it's just a report," he said. "Hey, fake news, right? I’m only countering what goes on on the other side. The New York Times has yet to retract one in a billion articles so, no, it wouldn’t bother me," he said, referring to whether the information turned out to be false.

Curiously, Abbott didn't call for an investigation into that case. Because even in far-flung Texas, it's sometimes relatively easy to separate the wheat from the chaff between fact and fiction. But a probe centered on Travis County poll workers on Tuesday — one of whom was likely unfamiliar with the term "Dreamer" in referring to DACA recipients — is just getting started, and all too real

O'Rourke, so close to unseating Cruz, pranked by conspiracists

Some go to extra lengths to advance the fable of the marauding masses of undocumented voters. As O'Rourke was making extraordinary strides in unseating Sen. Cruz in his ultimately failed (but ever so close) race, an impostor infiltrated the congressman's campaign, commandeered the mass texting function and sent a message to potential voters seeking volunteers to help transport undocumented immigrants to the polls on Election Day.

"Hi, It’s Patsy here w/ Beto for Texas," the message began chirpily. "Our records indicate that you’re a supporter. We are in search of volunteers to help transport undocumented immigrants to polling booths so that they will be able [sic] vote. Would you be able to support this grassroots effort?"

Needless to say, the text was not an approved campaign message, campaign officials for the Beto O'Rourke campaign told the Texas Tribune and other media outlets. The message was produced by an "impostor" who had signed up to be a volunteer on the texting team, campaign officials told the Austin American-Statesman.

The tactic was widely condemned by O'Rourke supporters, but undoubtedly embraced as truthful by his detractors at a time when "alternative facts" sometimes carry the day.

Cruz's campaign asserted they had nothing to do with the text messaging that came amid a surprisingly competitive contest for the Senate seat. O'Rourke came closest than any Democrat in recent Texas history to be elected to statewide office, something that hasn't happened in the Lone Star State since 1994. Ultimately, Cruz emerged victorious with 50.9 percent of the vote to O'Rourke's 48.3 percent.

Given the tight race, some have speculated Cruz's camp somehow had something to do with the campaign dirty trick, but his camp vehemently denied the charge: "Our campaign had no involvement in the alleged abuse of the O’Rourke campaign’s texting platform,” Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said in a statement. “We don’t condone anyone who would engage in such action.”

Trump furthered a falsehood of his own during the heated Cruz-O'Rourke campaign, with the specter of the undocumented central to the fiction. President Trump told supporters at an October rally for Cruz in Houston that the congressman voted to shield gang members from deportation. "He doesn’t want to deport them," Trump told the crowd. "He says they’re people, they’re people. They carve you up with a knife but they’re people."

The nuances of the issue are convoluted and varied, but PolitiFact deemed the claim mostly false. Having exhaustively researched the matter, fact checkers found no evidence that O’Rourke’s "no" on a related issue was a vote to shield violent gang members from deportation.

Just another Election Day in Texas

And so went another Election Day in Texas, with the hoax of the undocumented voting masses emerging yet again but never actually materializing. Yet the legend of the undocumented voter now rivals in prominence to that of the dreaded chupacabra said to drain the blood of livestock.

Down in South Texas four years ago, a farming family claimed to have slain a mythical chupacabra, showing the fallen beast to curious journalists arriving from afar to see the lifeless creature for themselves. Before that, in June 2010, two mysterious, coyote-like creatures were spotted within a week of each other along a 10-mile stretch of North Texas those who saw them swore were chupacabras. The undocumented voter has proven exponentially more elusive, yet remains as enduring a myth across the Texas political landscape.

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