A video has been unearthed of a Harris County, Texas Republican official telling an audience that they need to recruit an “election integrity brigade” to challenge voters in Houston’s racially diverse downtown neighborhoods, the Washington Post reports.
The official said the GOP needs an “army” of 10,000 volunteers who have “the confidence and courage to come down here,” he said pointing to an area of downtown Houston, “this is where the fraud is occurring.”
Texas state officials, who are predominantly Republicans, couldn’t find any evidence of election fraud, large scale in-person fraud or vote counting fraud, a claim that has been come to be known as “The Big Lie” from Donald Trump because he continues to repeat it even though it has been debunked.
“It’s very clear that we’re talking about recruiting people from the predominantly Anglo parts of town to go to Black and Brown neighborhoods,” Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the group that posted the video, Common Cause Texas, told the Post. “This is a role that’s supposed to do nothing but stand at a poll site and observe. Why is he suggesting someone needs to be ‘courageous’?”
Harris County Republicans, however, claim that they are just energizing their base and protecting the integrity of the elections–elections whose integrity have not been questioned except by the GOP.
“The goal is to activate an army of volunteers for every precinct in Harris County,” county GOP head Cindy Siegel said. “And, to engage voters for the whole ballot, top to bottom, and ensure every legal vote is counted,” adding that Common Cause Texas are just trying “to bully and intimidate Republicans.”