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Russia Wants To Monitor The Texas Election, But Secretary Of State Says 'Nyet'

Wiki Commons

The Russian consulate general in Houston has asked if its delegation can monitor polling places during the Nov. 8th election in Texas.  The state's Secretary of State Carlos Cascos not only denied the Russians' request but said if it happened they would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
 
In late September, Texas Secretary of State Cascos received a letter from the Russian Federation’s Consul General in Houston, Alexander Zakharov, requesting that they be allowed to send an officer to a polling place in Harris County to monitor the election process.

 
In a letter, Zakharvo says his government simply wanted to study the U.S. experience in the organization of the voting process.
 
Cascos, in the return letter, told the Russian delegation that would not be possible.
 

Credit Ryan Poppe

Alicia Pierce, with the Texas Secretary of State’s office says it would be illegal.

 
“We did offer to set up some times to talk about the process in general, but no one who is unauthorized can be in that polling place. There is really no way to authorize a group like this to be in Texas’ polling place," Pierce explains.
 
 
 
In the Secretary of State’s return letter, Pierce points out that their office also reminded the Russian consul general that if any unauthorized person were to enter a polling place, he or she would be committing a Class C misdemeanor crime and charges would be filed against them.  
 
We reached out to the Russian consul general’s office in Houston, but they were not available for comment.  
 
​Texas was one of three states that turned down such requests from Russia. The other two states were Oklahoma and Louisiana.
 
 

Ryan started his radio career in 2002 working for Austin’s News Radio KLBJ-AM as a show producer for the station's organic gardening shows. This slowly evolved into a role as the morning show producer and later as the group’s executive producer.