Investigators in Zapata County, Texas, seized 73 pages of affidavits describing an alleged voter fraud scheme where campaign workers were paid to "assist" voters — which apparently meant telling them who to vote for, watching them fill out their ballots, and in some cases paying them with dropped fines and community service hours. The cash drop-off point was reportedly next to a porta potty near the county courthouse.
The guy allegedly running the operation? The county judge.
Texas Attorney General's Criminal Investigations Division Election Integrity Unit executed search warrants in July at the residences of Zapata County Judge Joe Rathmell and his wife Gina Rathmell, Sheriff Ramon Montes and his wife Sonia Sanchez, the sheriff's secretary Norma Garcia and her husband Corando Barrera, campaign worker Laura Garza, and Justice of the Peace Olga Bruni. Phone and bank records were seized from all locations. The affidavits were unsealed this past week, and the picture they paint is about as subtle as that porta potty cash drop.
According to phone records obtained by investigators, there were 1,035 phone contacts between Laura Garza and Gina Rathmell between June 2024 and June 2026. That's roughly one contact per day for two straight years. Garza also had 174 phone contacts with Judge Rathmell during the same period. The alleged scheme involved campaign staff being paid to assist hundreds of voters — transporting them to the polls, telling them which candidates to support, and watching as they cast their ballots.
The investigation traces back to the March 2026 Democratic primary for Zapata County judge, where candidate Martha Morales alleged the pattern occurred. Morales sued, lost her civil case due to a statutory deadline, and asked the Secretary of State and attorney general to investigate. A similar complaint came from former Sheriff Raymundo Del Bosque after losing his March 2024 Democratic primary to Ramon Montes. Both losers told the same story. Both pointed at the same people.
Gina Rathmell posted on Facebook that she and her husband "have publicly and fairly served for over 22 years" and that these are "NOT charges, these are only allegations." Corando Barrera, Norma Garcia's husband, echoed the defense: "Accusations are easy to make but proving them is an entirely different story. Norma and I know exactly what we did and did not do, and we are extremely confident about where the truth and the evidence will ultimately lead."
That's a lot of confidence for a guy whose wife had over a thousand phone contacts with the judge's wife during the period in question.
Candidate Carmen Mena-Paredes, who ran for county clerk in the March 2026 primary, struck a different tone: "If there are legitimate concerns about the integrity of our elections, every race deserves the same level of scrutiny. This isn't about targeting one candidate, one party, or one office, it's about transparency, accountability, and making sure every vote was legally and fairly cast."
Worth noting — this entire alleged operation ran through the Democratic primary. These aren't Republicans and Democrats pointing fingers at each other across the aisle. These are Democrats accusing other Democrats of rigging Democratic primaries in a heavily Democratic county in southern Texas. The people who keep telling us voter fraud is a right-wing conspiracy theory might want to explain why their own candidates keep filing complaints about it.
We spent years being told that voter fraud was a myth — a fever dream cooked up by people who couldn't accept election results. Meanwhile, in Zapata County, investigators allege a sitting county judge, his wife, the sheriff, the sheriff's wife, the sheriff's secretary, a justice of the peace, and assorted campaign workers were running what amounts to a vote-harvesting franchise. Hundreds of voters. Cash payments. Dropped fines. Workers physically watching people vote.
Voter fraud doesn't exist — it just has a county judge, a sheriff, a justice of the peace, and a porta potty.
