Tarrant County’s Election Integrity Task Force responded to seven complaints during early voting for the May 6 election.
Early voting started April 24 and ended May 2 and since then, four of the cases have been closed, said Robbie Hoy, public information officer for the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office.
No criminal conduct was found. The remaining three, which were reported on the last day of early voting, are still open.
“Some of those issues included complaints about poll workers to questions about a candidate’s eligibility to participate in the election,” Hoy wrote in an email to the Fort Worth Report.
In late February, Sheriff Bill Waybourn told county commissioners that the newly created task force had received nearly a dozen complaints since its inception less than a month prior. The sheriff’s department is the investigatory part of the integrity task force.
None of the complaints received by the task force, including those during the early voting period, have been referred to the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office for possible criminal charges, according to the DA’s office.
Anna Tinsley Williams, communications officer for the DA’s office, said the office only gets involved once cases are officially filed. From there, prosecutors review the cases to determine whether they should move forward with charging someone.
Overall in Tarrant County, election fraud cases are rare. The most publicized case in the county is that of Crystal Mason, a woman who was convicted of felony voter fraud for casting a provisional ballot while on supervised release for a federal felony in the 2016 election. She is appealing her conviction.
This municipal election is the first time local elected officials in Tarrant County have control of both investigations and prosecutions of alleged election fraud. Previously, the cases were handled by the state attorney general’s office.
Emily Wolf is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at emily.wolf@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
