Felons Still on Parole Voted in Harris County. Paxton Had Them Arrested Three Days Before Election Day

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office arrested convicted felons who allegedly cast ballots in Harris County in this year's election while they were still on parole. Under Texas law, they were not allowed to vote at all.

"Today, my office arrested convicted felons for voting illegally in Texas," Paxton said in a statement Saturday. "My Election Integrity Unit is actively investigating additional reports of election crimes. We will continue working to protect the lawful votes of Texans."

The whole case moved in four days. A tip came in on Tuesday, warrants were issued Friday, and the arrests followed, all before Tuesday's election, in which Paxton is on the ballot for U.S. Senate.

How the case came together

According to the attorney general's office, a concerned citizen reported on Oct. 27 that convicted felons who were in prison, on parole or on probation had cast ballots in Harris County, and backed it up with open-source information.

Analysts in the office's Election Integrity Unit then verified who the people were, pulled their voter registration records and checked whether they had voted in the 2026 election. They sent the names to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the state prison and parole system, to confirm each person's status. TDCJ has so far confirmed that "multiple individuals were on parole when they cast their ballots," the office said.

On Oct. 30, arrest warrants were issued in Montgomery County, Harris County's neighbor to the north, for the people identified so far. Officers from the attorney general's office made the arrests.

The rule they're accused of breaking

Texas does not ban felons from voting for life. It makes them wait. Under Election Code Section 11.002, a person with a felony conviction becomes a qualified voter again only after they have "fully discharged" the sentence, "including any term of incarceration, parole, or supervision," or finished probation, or been pardoned. Think of parole as the last stretch of the sentence served outside the walls. Until it ends, the right to vote stays off.

Casting a ballot you know you aren't eligible to cast is illegal voting under Section 64.012, a second-degree felony in Texas. An attempt is a state jail felony. The key word in the law is "knowingly," which is what prosecutors will have to prove in each case.

The questions the release leaves open

How many? The office says "multiple" people were confirmed on parole and that the arrests cover those "identified thus far," but it has not given a number or released names.

How were they still on the rolls? Texas already has a system meant to stop this. Every business day, the Department of Public Safety is required to send the secretary of state an abstract of each new felony conviction, and county registrars must cancel a convicted felon's registration "immediately" when that notice arrives. Nobody has explained how people on parole kept active registrations in Harris County, the state's largest county, through the 2026 election.

What happens to the ballots? The release does not say whether the ballots in question were counted or can be pulled.

Why Montgomery County? The ballots were cast in Harris County, but the warrants came out of Montgomery County. The office did not explain the venue.

Why it matters now

It is the second Harris County election fight from Paxton's office in three days. On Oct. 29 it sued the Harris County Clerk over get-out-the-vote ads on Meta that were targeted by race and ethnicity, and on Oct. 30 it announced a settlement making the clerk pull them.

Critics like to say this kind of voter fraud doesn't happen. Here, a private citizen used public records to spot it, and the state confirmed it in days. Paxton says his unit is already working "additional reports," so this may not be the last arrest before the votes are certified.