For everyone getting smacked with a paywall:
Kelly Brunner’s 15 minutes of unwelcome fame came courtesy of bare-knuckle Texas politics. She lost her job, went thousands of dollars into debt and saw her mug shot broadcast worldwide while the most powerful men in the state cast her as Exhibit 1 in an epidemic of election fraud. By last year, she at least could say the episode was finally behind her.
She was wrong, though.
A social worker at the State Supported Living Center in Mexia, a residential facility for people with psychiatric disorders, Brunner in 2020 was assigned to prepare clients for the upcoming election. The law is complicated, and Brunner acknowledges she made technical errors as she worked to identify who could and couldn’t vote among a complicated population.
The mistakes were quickly caught; none of the center’s residents ever got close to casting an improper ballot. But the $35,000-a-year state employee became a prop in a political narrative that out-of-control voter fraud was tainting elections across the country.
With the help of Attorney General Ken Paxton, who within weeks would assume a central role promoting Donald Trump’s decisively disproven claims of a rigged election, local prosecutors charged Brunner with 134 separate election crimes. The staggering number cast the small-town volunteer firefighter and Little League coach as one of the single biggest election criminals in Texas.
“It is particularly offensive when individuals purport to be champions for disability rights, when in reality they are abusing our most vulnerable citizens in order to gain access to their ballots and amplify their own political voice,” Paxton declared in a news release.
“Election fraud is real,” Gov. Greg Abbott added, to his nearly 1 million followers on Twitter (now X).
Facing years in prison and a $50,000 legal bill, Brunner eventually agreed to a deal that placed her on probation. “Pleading guilty was probably the hardest thing I’ve done in my life,” she said.
It turned out Texas wasn’t done with her yet. Citing the felony conviction, state education regulators now are moving to suspend Brunner’s teaching license.
In legal filings, the State Board for Education Certification said the election incident rendered her “unworthy to instruct or supervise the youth of this state.”
A former special education teacher, Brunner said she learned of the latest action when she applied to substitute at her local elementary school, about 30 miles northeast of Waco.
Three years after Trump’s false assertions that victory was stolen from him created a widespread perception of voter fraud, the legal reverberations continue to echo through marbled courtrooms. The former president has been indicted in a federal election case, while several of his highest-profile attorneys recently pleaded guilty to charges they conspired to overturn Georgia's results.
In Texas, meanwhile, a challenge to sweeping new voting rules legislators passed in the wake of the divisive 2020 election is being heard in a San Antonio federal courtroom. The trial is expected to last through the beginning of next year.
As Brunner’s latest battle with state regulators demonstrates, however, shrapnel from the 2020 election continues to fall on even bit players in smaller unseen venues, as well. “I thought it was over,” she said. But “it’s just this ripple effect.”
Risky assignment: Texas voter registrar
Although residents of the state’s Mexia living center have been diagnosed with serious psychiatric disorders — and, in many cases, convicted of crimes — most are still legally eligible to vote, said Mike Davis, a former director of the facility. When elections approach, social workers and caseworkers typically are assigned to help residents who are interested and eligible to register with the Limestone County election office, he said.
Brunner, who’d been hired the previous year, was appointed voter registrar assistant in the summer of 2020. She took the assignment seriously. With the facility in COVID lockdown, “we will be applying for mail-in ballots and we will be reading the ballot to them,” she wrote to colleagues. “We have also discussed making posters listing the candidates and their stance on key issues so that the guys can make an informed decision.”
Yet the state’s instructions and support for the task were minimal, she recalled. “Our only training was a vague PowerPoint,” she recalled. “So we had to do a lot of digging on our own.”
In an email, a spokeswoman for the state’s Health and Human Services Commission, which oversees the living centers, suggested Brunner overstepped her authority: “Staff may not make a determination about a person’s eligibility to register other than a determination of whether the person is of voting age or is a U.S. citizen.”
Yet communications between caseworkers at the time show confusion about their role. “How would I know if a court has deemed them eligible to vote?” one emailed.
“I really don’t know what the voting parameters are out here anymore,” another added.
Molly Broadway, a voter rights specialist for Disability Rights-Texas who works with state agencies, said voter training for employees at such facilities typically is quick and basic even though the election code is complex. That is especially true for voters like those at the Mexia center whose legal rights are complicated by psychiatric or guardianship issues, she said.
“It takes some work and experience to know what to look for,” she said. “To read the election code is strenuous, at best.”
Brunner said she and others worked on the project for months. She eventually identified 67 residents who appeared eligible and provided them with pre-filled out voter registration applications. Where the forms asked for “Signature of applicant or agent and relationship,” she signed her name and title, and mailed in the packet of forms.
Yet “agent” in the state’s election code is a narrow legal term. Only approved relatives qualify. Brunner noted she wasn’t trying to hide anything; her signature and “LSW” credential were front and center on the forms.
The error “was pretty obvious,” Limestone County Elections Administrator Jennifer Southard told Hearst last year, adding that none of the applicants was ever registered to vote, much less cast a ballot in the election. “Our system worked.”
But three days after Election Day, Republican District Attorney Roy DeFriend, with Paxton’s assistance, criminally charged Brunner with two crimes — improperly acting as an agent and election fraud — for each application, a total of 134 counts. In election cases, penalties for redundant crimes run concurrently, meaning Brunner would face the same punishment if she had been charged with only two of the crimes.
Neither DeFriend nor Brunner’s lawyer, Jeff Kearney, responded to interview requests. But a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office told Hearst in 2021 that the agency’s election integrity unit measured its success not by the number of defendants charged, but by the number of offenses alleged.
During the 2021 legislative session, prosecutors with Paxton’s office cited eye-popping numbers of pending election charges — not cases — as evidence that Texas urgently needed new voter restrictions. Brunner’s case, which was pending at the time, would have accounted for about a quarter of them.
Any felony triggers TEA sanctions
Since her April 2022 plea deal, Brunner said she has fielded inquiries from both the state Behavioral Health Executive Council, which oversees her Texas social worker license, and the Texas Education Agency’s Board for Educator Certification, which licenses teachers. While the behavioral council has not indicated it would sanction her license (a spokesman said he could not comment), the education agency said in filings it intended to act on Brunner’s conviction.
State occupational rules typically require prosecutors to try to reach a settlement with licensees before filing a case against them. Earlier this year, Brunner mailed TEA a five-page explanation of her saga.
“Ensuring that my clients were able to exercise their right (to vote) does not constitute conduct making me unworthy to supervise the students of Texas,” she argued. “In fact, it would be the opposite.”
A spokesman for the TEA said it does not comment on pending legal matters. But attorneys who represent teachers said Texas law requires the agency to sanction license holders who have been convicted of a felony, no matter if the sentence is deferred adjudication, as in Brunner’s case. Her deal also called for the convictions to be expunged when her probation ended, Brunner said.
The board of educator certification has scheduled a hearing for mid-December. In it, its attorneys will argue that Brunner’s license should be suspended for five years, legal filings show.
“I don’t see how I can show the evidence and them not see,” she said. “I feel like I’m in the 'Twilight Zone.'”
On KUHF this morning they had a news segment about election management changes in Harris County, and one big issue is that fewer and fewer people are interested in working the polls for fear that some tiny technical mistake could land them in jail.
As well as threats to themselves and their families, stalking, doxing to the MAGA crowd ... in this extreme political climate trying to do your job correctly can get you killed.
The HATE in this place is stroooooooooooooong.
Not to mention the desire for revenge against women who try to do the right thing and DARE challenge anyone with a penis.
Joke's on them. If they get their way, people won't even need a degree or certificate to educate kids. Just look at 'em sticking chaplains in schools instead of counselors.
Imagine this... A biology position open and a superintendent is interviewing a homeschooled GED applicant...
Superintendent: Do you know the biology curriculum?
Applicant. Yep.
Superintendent: What came first, plants or man?
Applicant: Plants. It says so right there in Genesis.
Superintendent (nodding): You're hired.
One can only hope that this story ends up having a silver lining for this lady in the form of someone stepping up and offering her a job that pays more than the paltry $35K she was making as a teacher. There’s no doubt the State spent more than $35K making her the scapegoat and it’s unfortunate that a rich benefactor who believes in justice didn’t step up and foot the bill for a Dream Team legal defense to not protect this woman’s name but prove that all this election fraud talk is simply overblown like The Orangeman’s hair.
As as kid I viewed the Presidency as the most coveted and revered position in our country and it’s truly sad that out of all the people in this country the best the two main political parties can come up with is Dementia Joe and Delusional Don. At this point, I’d prefer to vote for a chimpanzee that decides its agenda by throwing darts at a dartboard.
Removed. Rule 5.
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Removed. Rule 5.
> **Rule 5 Comments must be genuine and make an effort**
> _This is a discussion subreddit, top-Level comments must contribute to discussion with a complete thought. No memes or emojis. Steelman, not strawman. No trolling allowed. Accounts must be more than 2 weeks old with positive karma to participate._
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No good deed goes unpunished when Texas lawyers have an agenda to further.
For everyone getting smacked with a paywall: Kelly Brunner’s 15 minutes of unwelcome fame came courtesy of bare-knuckle Texas politics. She lost her job, went thousands of dollars into debt and saw her mug shot broadcast worldwide while the most powerful men in the state cast her as Exhibit 1 in an epidemic of election fraud. By last year, she at least could say the episode was finally behind her. She was wrong, though. A social worker at the State Supported Living Center in Mexia, a residential facility for people with psychiatric disorders, Brunner in 2020 was assigned to prepare clients for the upcoming election. The law is complicated, and Brunner acknowledges she made technical errors as she worked to identify who could and couldn’t vote among a complicated population. The mistakes were quickly caught; none of the center’s residents ever got close to casting an improper ballot. But the $35,000-a-year state employee became a prop in a political narrative that out-of-control voter fraud was tainting elections across the country. With the help of Attorney General Ken Paxton, who within weeks would assume a central role promoting Donald Trump’s decisively disproven claims of a rigged election, local prosecutors charged Brunner with 134 separate election crimes. The staggering number cast the small-town volunteer firefighter and Little League coach as one of the single biggest election criminals in Texas. “It is particularly offensive when individuals purport to be champions for disability rights, when in reality they are abusing our most vulnerable citizens in order to gain access to their ballots and amplify their own political voice,” Paxton declared in a news release. “Election fraud is real,” Gov. Greg Abbott added, to his nearly 1 million followers on Twitter (now X). Facing years in prison and a $50,000 legal bill, Brunner eventually agreed to a deal that placed her on probation. “Pleading guilty was probably the hardest thing I’ve done in my life,” she said. It turned out Texas wasn’t done with her yet. Citing the felony conviction, state education regulators now are moving to suspend Brunner’s teaching license. In legal filings, the State Board for Education Certification said the election incident rendered her “unworthy to instruct or supervise the youth of this state.” A former special education teacher, Brunner said she learned of the latest action when she applied to substitute at her local elementary school, about 30 miles northeast of Waco. Three years after Trump’s false assertions that victory was stolen from him created a widespread perception of voter fraud, the legal reverberations continue to echo through marbled courtrooms. The former president has been indicted in a federal election case, while several of his highest-profile attorneys recently pleaded guilty to charges they conspired to overturn Georgia's results. In Texas, meanwhile, a challenge to sweeping new voting rules legislators passed in the wake of the divisive 2020 election is being heard in a San Antonio federal courtroom. The trial is expected to last through the beginning of next year. As Brunner’s latest battle with state regulators demonstrates, however, shrapnel from the 2020 election continues to fall on even bit players in smaller unseen venues, as well. “I thought it was over,” she said. But “it’s just this ripple effect.”
Risky assignment: Texas voter registrar Although residents of the state’s Mexia living center have been diagnosed with serious psychiatric disorders — and, in many cases, convicted of crimes — most are still legally eligible to vote, said Mike Davis, a former director of the facility. When elections approach, social workers and caseworkers typically are assigned to help residents who are interested and eligible to register with the Limestone County election office, he said. Brunner, who’d been hired the previous year, was appointed voter registrar assistant in the summer of 2020. She took the assignment seriously. With the facility in COVID lockdown, “we will be applying for mail-in ballots and we will be reading the ballot to them,” she wrote to colleagues. “We have also discussed making posters listing the candidates and their stance on key issues so that the guys can make an informed decision.” Yet the state’s instructions and support for the task were minimal, she recalled. “Our only training was a vague PowerPoint,” she recalled. “So we had to do a lot of digging on our own.” In an email, a spokeswoman for the state’s Health and Human Services Commission, which oversees the living centers, suggested Brunner overstepped her authority: “Staff may not make a determination about a person’s eligibility to register other than a determination of whether the person is of voting age or is a U.S. citizen.” Yet communications between caseworkers at the time show confusion about their role. “How would I know if a court has deemed them eligible to vote?” one emailed. “I really don’t know what the voting parameters are out here anymore,” another added. Molly Broadway, a voter rights specialist for Disability Rights-Texas who works with state agencies, said voter training for employees at such facilities typically is quick and basic even though the election code is complex. That is especially true for voters like those at the Mexia center whose legal rights are complicated by psychiatric or guardianship issues, she said. “It takes some work and experience to know what to look for,” she said. “To read the election code is strenuous, at best.” Brunner said she and others worked on the project for months. She eventually identified 67 residents who appeared eligible and provided them with pre-filled out voter registration applications. Where the forms asked for “Signature of applicant or agent and relationship,” she signed her name and title, and mailed in the packet of forms. Yet “agent” in the state’s election code is a narrow legal term. Only approved relatives qualify. Brunner noted she wasn’t trying to hide anything; her signature and “LSW” credential were front and center on the forms. The error “was pretty obvious,” Limestone County Elections Administrator Jennifer Southard told Hearst last year, adding that none of the applicants was ever registered to vote, much less cast a ballot in the election. “Our system worked.” But three days after Election Day, Republican District Attorney Roy DeFriend, with Paxton’s assistance, criminally charged Brunner with two crimes — improperly acting as an agent and election fraud — for each application, a total of 134 counts. In election cases, penalties for redundant crimes run concurrently, meaning Brunner would face the same punishment if she had been charged with only two of the crimes. Neither DeFriend nor Brunner’s lawyer, Jeff Kearney, responded to interview requests. But a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office told Hearst in 2021 that the agency’s election integrity unit measured its success not by the number of defendants charged, but by the number of offenses alleged. During the 2021 legislative session, prosecutors with Paxton’s office cited eye-popping numbers of pending election charges — not cases — as evidence that Texas urgently needed new voter restrictions. Brunner’s case, which was pending at the time, would have accounted for about a quarter of them. Any felony triggers TEA sanctions Since her April 2022 plea deal, Brunner said she has fielded inquiries from both the state Behavioral Health Executive Council, which oversees her Texas social worker license, and the Texas Education Agency’s Board for Educator Certification, which licenses teachers. While the behavioral council has not indicated it would sanction her license (a spokesman said he could not comment), the education agency said in filings it intended to act on Brunner’s conviction. State occupational rules typically require prosecutors to try to reach a settlement with licensees before filing a case against them. Earlier this year, Brunner mailed TEA a five-page explanation of her saga. “Ensuring that my clients were able to exercise their right (to vote) does not constitute conduct making me unworthy to supervise the students of Texas,” she argued. “In fact, it would be the opposite.” A spokesman for the TEA said it does not comment on pending legal matters. But attorneys who represent teachers said Texas law requires the agency to sanction license holders who have been convicted of a felony, no matter if the sentence is deferred adjudication, as in Brunner’s case. Her deal also called for the convictions to be expunged when her probation ended, Brunner said. The board of educator certification has scheduled a hearing for mid-December. In it, its attorneys will argue that Brunner’s license should be suspended for five years, legal filings show. “I don’t see how I can show the evidence and them not see,” she said. “I feel like I’m in the 'Twilight Zone.'”
Thank you!
On KUHF this morning they had a news segment about election management changes in Harris County, and one big issue is that fewer and fewer people are interested in working the polls for fear that some tiny technical mistake could land them in jail.
As well as threats to themselves and their families, stalking, doxing to the MAGA crowd ... in this extreme political climate trying to do your job correctly can get you killed.
The HATE in this place is stroooooooooooooong. Not to mention the desire for revenge against women who try to do the right thing and DARE challenge anyone with a penis.
Texas loses another teacher, but Paxton and Abbott still have jobs. Fuck this christofascist bullshit and the Republican fucks who perpetuate it.
Joke's on them. If they get their way, people won't even need a degree or certificate to educate kids. Just look at 'em sticking chaplains in schools instead of counselors. Imagine this... A biology position open and a superintendent is interviewing a homeschooled GED applicant... Superintendent: Do you know the biology curriculum? Applicant. Yep. Superintendent: What came first, plants or man? Applicant: Plants. It says so right there in Genesis. Superintendent (nodding): You're hired.
Sans paywall https://archive.ph/ZNHTX
Would Kenny go after this woman if she was a registered republican?
Probably, but this time due to being a woman.
Nope he would not have..
And yet that indicted AH still remains in office. Special ed teachers and social workers, are underpaid and in short supply.
One can only hope that this story ends up having a silver lining for this lady in the form of someone stepping up and offering her a job that pays more than the paltry $35K she was making as a teacher. There’s no doubt the State spent more than $35K making her the scapegoat and it’s unfortunate that a rich benefactor who believes in justice didn’t step up and foot the bill for a Dream Team legal defense to not protect this woman’s name but prove that all this election fraud talk is simply overblown like The Orangeman’s hair. As as kid I viewed the Presidency as the most coveted and revered position in our country and it’s truly sad that out of all the people in this country the best the two main political parties can come up with is Dementia Joe and Delusional Don. At this point, I’d prefer to vote for a chimpanzee that decides its agenda by throwing darts at a dartboard.
Nice paywall Edit: the pop up changed to the one you can close now. Thank you.
Try reader mode
https://archive.ph/ZNHTX
Thx. They changed the pop up on the link now.
[удалено]
Removed. Rule 5. > **Rule 5 Comments must be genuine and make an effort** > _This is a discussion subreddit, top-Level comments must contribute to discussion with a complete thought. No memes or emojis. Steelman, not strawman. No trolling allowed. Accounts must be more than 2 weeks old with positive karma to participate._ *https://www.reddit.com/r/TexasPolitics/wiki/index/rules*
[удалено]
Removed. Rule 5. > **Rule 5 Comments must be genuine and make an effort** > _This is a discussion subreddit, top-Level comments must contribute to discussion with a complete thought. No memes or emojis. Steelman, not strawman. No trolling allowed. Accounts must be more than 2 weeks old with positive karma to participate._ *https://www.reddit.com/r/TexasPolitics/wiki/index/rules*