Victoria County District Judge Eli Garza sentenced Mendez to five years of deferred adjudication probation.
Mendez pleaded guilty to 26 felony counts of voter fraud, including three counts of illegal voting, eight counts of election fraud, seven counts of assisting a voter to submit a ballot by mail, and eight counts of unlawful possession of a mail ballot, the office stated. The election in question was the 2018 Victoria County Water Control and Improvement District 1 Election in Bloomington, Texas. Monica Mendez, 36, of Port Lavaca, Texas, ran a “vote-harvesting operation on behalf of a subsidized housing corporation in order to influence the outcome of a utility board election,” the Texas Attorney General’s (AG) Office said in a June 17 statement. A Texas woman pleaded guilty on June 16 to 26 counts of voter fraud committed during a local water board election in 2018.