A Texas woman was arrested on voter fraud charges Wednesday after a video from Project Veritas appeared to show her convincing an older woman to change her vote.
Raquel Rodriguez was arrested in San Antonio, police told KSAT 12.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton‘s office announced in a press release that Rodriguez is being charged with “election fraud, illegal voting, unlawfully assisting people voting by mail, and unlawfully possessing an official ballot.”
“Many continue to claim that there’s no such thing as election fraud,” Paxton said. “We’ve always known that such a claim is false and misleading, and today we have additional hard evidence. This is a victory for election integrity and a strong signal that anyone who attempts to defraud the people of Texas, deprive them of their vote, or undermine the integrity of elections will be brought to justice.”
Last fall, Project Veritas released video footage that appeared to show Rodriguez convincing an older woman to vote for a Democrat and helping her change her ballot. Rodriguez also appeared to admit on video that candidates were paying her to deliver votes for them.
James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, tweeted in reaction to the attorney general’s announcement, “For those who say ‘nothing matters’ this is for you. For those in the news media who says there is no such thing as voter fraud and what we do is nothing more than an attempt to ‘undermine elections,’ TAKE A SEAT!”
VERITAS INVESTIGATION INTO VOTER FRAUD LEADS TO ARREST.
For those who say “nothing matters” this is for you.
For those in the news media who says there is no such thing as voter fraud and what we do is nothing more than an attempt to “undermine elections,” TAKE A SEAT! pic.twitter.com/L65hvsesSb
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) January 13, 2021
After the video was released, Rodriguez said in an interview with web show The Carpenters Apprentice that she was misrepresented.
“They were pulling me, and I was pulling their strings. That’s how I saw it,” she said, according to News 4 San Antonio. “Little did I know what they were doing, but I knew something was wrong, and I just went with it.”
The attorney general’s office said the arrest is based on hours of unedited footage reviewed by the Election Fraud Division of the office of the attorney general.
It is unclear how widespread prosecutors believe Rodriguez’s alleged fraud to have been, but Paxton’s office said that, if convicted, Rodriguez could face up to 20 years in prison.
The press release listed Rodriquez’s first name as Rachel. The attorney general’s office told the Washington Examiner that she goes by both names.
