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Texas’ Lt. Guv Pays First Voter-Fraud Reward—to a Progressive Poll Worker

Eric Frank was rewarded with $25,000 after flagging a 72-year-old Republican who voted twice.

Texas’ lieutenant governor has forked over the first cash prize for a tip on voter fraud—committed by a 72-year-old Republican who voted twice. Nearly a year after a roundly mocked announcement of up to $1 million in “rewards” to anyone who provided information that led to “an arrest and final conviction of voter fraud,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s office has deposited $25,000 in the bank account of Eric Frank. A progressive Pennsylvania poll worker from a family of Democrats, Frank reported Ralph Thurman, who eventually admitted to illegally voting a second time under his son’s name. Thurman has been banned from voting for four years and sentenced to three years of probation.

“It’s my belief that they were trying to get cases of Democrats doing voter fraud,” Frank told The Dallas Morning News. “And that just wasn’t the case. This kind of blew up in their face.” The poll worker said a Patrick campaign spokesperson, Allen Blakemore, told him he wouldn’t be receiving more than $25,000, the baseline reward, because the lieutenant governor was looking for “bigger fish” than Thurman. Patrick, thoroughly hoisted by his own petard, declined to comment through Blakemore.