Paxton Rocked by Illegal Voting Allegations
after Spending July Fourth with the British
Capitol Inside
July 8, 2026
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton faced accusations of voter fraud on Wednesday after leading a crusade to wipe it out for years in a development that could put a baggage-plagued campaign for the U.S. Senate in serious jeopardy less than four months before the midterm vote.
Austin State Rep. James Talarico - the U.S. Senate nominee for the Democrats here - sought to sum up the latest controversy in which his opponent finds himself embroiled in a post on social media today. Talarico noted that Paxton has been campaigning on a promise to end "illegal voting" in the Lone Star State.
"Republican candidate Ken Paxton has likely committed voter fraud, after using a false address in 6 different elections," Talarico asserted today on X.
The Democrat Senate contender based the claim on a story the Texas Tribune posted on Tuesday based on a probe that it conducted with the non-profit publication ProPublica. The media investigation revealed that Paxton voted in a half-dozen elections while registered at the residence where he'd lived in Collin County with his wife until moving out two years ago.
The AG's spouse - State Senator Angela Paxton of McKinney - filed for divorce last year amid allegations of adultery on the part of her husband. Paxton reportedly has been living during part of that time in neighboring Denton County with an alleged mistress while he and his wife of 38 years remain married pending the breakup's finalization at the courthouse.
Paxton's campaign has denied that the state lawyer violated any election laws. But the new scrutiny comes at a time when the Republicans' Senate candidate has been vacationing in Europe with the same woman on a trip that's featured stops in Iceland and England.
Paxton and the female traveling partner were spotted by someone who recognized him while strolling down a street in London on Saturday when Americans were celebrating the country's victory 250 years ago in the battle for independence from the British on the Fourth of July. The couple were dressed up despite a heat wave in the UK on a day that appeared bright and sunny based on the cell phone video that's gone viral on social media for the past two days.
Someone else recorded Paxton and the female friend last week at Dulles International Airport in Washington D.C. at the start of the European excursion. Paxton realized in both cases that he was being filmed by people he apparently did not recognize himself.
Paxton has fought to put people behind bars for voting law infractions in the same league with the misrepresentation of a registered voters' home address. Voters are forbid from casting ballots in Texas election if they're registered at an address that is not their actual residence at the time of an election.
Paxton cheered in 2017 when Rosa Ortega, who'd been a permanent residents of the U.S. since she was a baby, was sentenced to eight years in prison for voting the year before when she did not realize that she was not legally qualified to do so.
The Ortega punishment “shows how serious Texas is about keeping its elections secure,” Paxton declared. Paxton fought Crystal Mason's appeal of a five-year sentence that she landed after being prosecuted in Tarrant County for voting illegally in 2016. Mason did not know that she was barred from voting while on parole for tax fraud conviction - and the Texas Second Court of Appeals reversed the election fraud case in 2024.
more to come ...
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