After months of the Trump
campaign claiming that there was
voter fraud, we finally have
some evidence that what they were
saying is kind of somewhat true.
Not in the context that they've
been saying but
certainly in Medina County, Texas,
where the justice of peace
Thomas Ramirez has been arrested.
And is facing voter fraud related
charges.
Now, to be clear,
Ramirez is a Republican.
And he's facing one count of
organized election fraud,
one count of assisting voting
ballot by mail and 17 counts of
unlawful possession of a ballot or
ballot envelope.
So the thing that's frustrating
about this story is that, we don't
know specific details about what he
and the three others who got
arrested along with him, have done.
So let me tell you the other
arrests and then we can discuss.
And again, these are Republicans.
So any voter fraud related charges
they're facing,
have to do with them trying to help
Republican candidates fraudulently.
So we have, Leonor Rivas Garza
who's also facing one charge
of organized election fraud,
two counts of illegal voting,
eight counts of unlawful possession
of a ballot or ballot envelope,
two counts of election fraud and
four counts of fraudulent use of
an absentee ballot by mail.
Eva and Martinez is another person
who got arrested facing one count
of organized election fraud, nine
counts of illegal voting, 28 counts
of unlawful possession of ballot or
ballot envelope, three counts
of purportedly acting as an agent,
five counts of tampering with
government record, 14 counts of
election fraud and four counts of
fraudulent mail ballot application.
And I'm going to take a little
break from reading more and
more of these charges.
There is one other person named
Mary Balderrama was also facing
similar election fraud charges.
And what's amazing to me is that
the system seems to work
pretty damn well.
This is related to elections
in 2018, not 2020.
And voter fraud as we know from
the statistics, as we know
from the studies, is very rare.
And when it does happen,
people tend to get caught.
As is the case in Texas.
It's just that often times there
are Republicans trying to help
other Republicans win in
these elections through fraud.
>> I love how if this were the shoe
on the other foot if these were
democrats this would be
Tucker Carlson's lead story.
It would be the entire night on
Fox News.
It'd be the week on Fox News.
lt'd be the morning, noon, night.
It would be round the clock
coverage of these three people.
And where they went to high school,
friends of theirs.
[LAUGH]. Meanwhile, you know most
media outlets except for
TYT are going to really cover this.
This is one of those stories kind
of like flies under the radar.
lt's like, there goes.
Well guess we won't get
the narrative upper hand like
we always should when it comes to
proving the Republicans.
Of course I mean, Texas.
Is it threat of going blue?
I mean, they're all shook there.
They're scared.
There's going to be a sea change in
that state.
And so it makes sense that it's
in Texas.
But man they were busy, Martinez,
28 counts, 40 counts, 30 counts.
That's a lot of counts.
I wonder what happens.
[LAUGH]. >> That's a lot of counts.
What's also amazing is how
protected they are because I have
no doubt in my mind that had this
been a democratic effort to
commit voter fraud.
We would know the details of what
they did exactly.
All we know from local reporting by
the way.
>> Yeah. >> I've only seen this in
local reports is that these people
have been charged.
The Medina County Texas justice
of peace,
Thomas Ramirez has been arrested.
And we did get a little bit of
information from the Bandera county
sheriff's office that said each
defendant was released on bond.
The Office of
the Attorney General's website
states that the office has
successfully prosecuted 531 counts
of voter fraud since 2004.
It looks like the system's
working guys.
With 97 of them from 2018 alone.
Currently 234 election fraud
investigations are still active.
And what's interesting is what
we're seeing by state
legislatures in these States.
Including by the way more recently,
Georgia.
Is this effort to pass restrictive
voting laws to prevent people of
color from voting and
elderly people from voting.
Wow, what a shocker?
To prevent students from voting.
People who typically vote for
the Democratic party.
That's what they're targeting as
opposed to actually doing something
about election integrity as
Democrats have proposed.
Which is make sure that we have
paper ballots,
make sure that voting machines
are connected to the internet so
votes won't be changed.
Those are actual election integrity
matters that we should be concerned
with.
Republicans just want to prevent
people from voting.
That's where their energy
is focused.
>> Absolutely. I mean,
this is the thing.
We're obviously focusing on this
story.
I'm glad we're doing this story
because it's a few counts.
[LAUGH]. Of voter fraud.
So and it happens to be
Republicans, let's talk about it.
But exactly the real story
about voting in this country is all
the suppression is
the gerrymandering that was 2018.
So you're looking at voting for
Congress and all that.
And this is the thing we have to
keep in being vigilant about.
It's so
painful to me that there are so
many organizations.
That folks like Stacey Abrams have
to do the incredible backbreaking
amount of work to just monitor
polls, to make sure there is actual
election and voter integrity.
And that it's an industry
essentially.
lt's like a nonprofit industry to
be like, get out the vote also
protect the vote.
These are basic things that
our government should be doing.
But again, I mean man talking about
patchwork responses everything,
just the way that we run our
elections is also so
incredibly patchwork.
So incredibly county by county,
very unreliable.
And it's just kind of,
well it's up to the.
Hope you don't get gerrymandered.
Or can find your dropbox and or
can vote between the hours of two
and three or
whatever ,the new hours are.
It's insane.