Misleading2026-10
What is circulating
“A closing ad by Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico said a Black Texas woman received a five year prison sentence for illegal voting "because of Ken Paxton's crackdown on voters of color."”
Claimed by James Talarico Senate campaign (Texas) · news report
The facts
FactCheck.org found the ad omits key context. The case was charged in 2017 and prosecuted by the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office, not Attorney General Paxton's office, over a 2016 provisional ballot cast while she was on supervised release; her vote was never counted and an appeals court overturned the conviction in March 2024. A 2021 ACLU analysis did find at least 72 percent of state election fraud cases under Paxton from 2015 to 2021 targeted Black and Latino people.