Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick offered cash rewards for proof of voter fraud. Now, tipsters worry he won’t pay up

AUSTIN — Days after the election, when Donald Trump was calling for evidence of voter fraud to reverse Joe Biden’s win, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick came to his aid by offering massive cash rewards to anyone who turned over proof of illegal voting.

Patrick’s bounty quickly went viral. He offered a minimum reward of $25,000 to anyone who provided proof of voter fraud to law enforcement. The incentives were necessary, the Republican said, to ferret out potential illegal voting and “restore faith in future elections.”

More than two months later, there is no evidence of widespread fraud during the 2020 election. Of the small number of arrests nationwide, most involved isolated instances of illegal voting that would not have changed the results for either party.

But now, tipsters who claim to have rooted out these rare cases of fraud are having difficulty figuring out how to get the reward money they say Patrick promised them. The lack of information about how to apply for one of these voter fraud rewards has prompted at least one tipster to question whether Patrick intends to live up to the promise.

There is no information on Patrick’s official state or campaign websites about how to apply for the cash prizes. His campaign spokesman told The Dallas Morning News earlier this month there had been no applications for the reward. He brushed off most other questions.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, is using Patrick’s silence against him, demanding he pay up after three Republicans in his state were arrested for allegedly voting illegally. He’s now selling t-shirts to promote his bout with Patrick, like a promoter ahead of a prizefight.

Patrick’s spokesman said only original tipsters — not government officials like Fetterman — are eligible for the cash reward.

One of these tipsters, a Pennsylvania poll worker who told police he witnessed a Republican vote twice in one day, wants to claim the reward if the man he turned in is convicted — but he has no idea how.

“I don’t know what avenue to take in order to request the reward,” Eric Frank told The News. He is not optimistic Patrick will pay up. “People go on social media and say stuff all the time.”

In a press release announcing the rewards, Patrick said the money would be available to “anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest and final conviction of voter fraud.” He set aside $1 million for the rewards in total.

Patrick’s campaign website includes general contact information for constituents. But the reward notice contained no information about what evidence tipsters needed to be eligible for the reward, how Patrick will determine the amount each tipster can receive or who to contact with questions.

Patrick’s campaign spokesman Allen Blakemore did not answer questions about the missing information.

Blakemore said the rewards would be paid with campaign cash, not state funds. Patrick had more than $19 million in his coffers at the end of December; he did not appear to have used any of that cash to pay these rewards, according to his most recent fundraising report.

But tipsters are only eligible to get these rewards after someone has been convicted, Blakemore explained: “The threshold of leading to the arrest and final conviction has not been met. As such, there have been no applications for reward.”

Blakemore did not answer questions about whether “final conviction” meant someone found guilty of voter fraud would have to exhaust all appeals — a process that can take years — before Patrick will pay the bounty.

In a recent appearance at a conservative think tank, Patrick suggested Americans have a right to be suspicious of the 2020 presidential election results, but stopped short of saying the results were invalid.

“I’m not in the camp that says ‘yes it was stolen.’ I don’t know,” Patrick said. On Biden, he added, “Once the election is over, that’s our president. I’m going to pray that God gives him wisdom not to listen to the crazies on the left.”

He did not mention the voter fraud rewards.

Last week and again Thursday, The News re-sent questions to Blakemore about the rewards: Has anyone applied? How does someone apply? How will Patrick determine the amount each tipster deserves?

Blakemore did not respond to these questions.

“You are perilously close to exhausting your quota of stupid questions for 2021 and it is only January,” he said last week.

Patrick has pointed to three recent arrests in Texas as proof that witnesses of illegal voting need incentives to come forward. The News was unable to reach the original tipsters in those cases.

Project Veritas, a rightwing advocacy group that runs undercover sting operations aimed at exposing bias and wrongdoing at liberal organizations and news outlets, said it would not apply for Patrick’s bounty after its secretly recorded footage of a poll worker allegedly breaking state voting laws resulted in her arrest last week.

“All we wanted to do was release our video and let the world see what’s going on behind the scenes,” Digital Communications Manager Eric Spracklen told The News.

Fetterman, Patrick’s counterpart in Pennsylvania, also has pointed to three arrests in his state to illustrate the rarity of voter fraud. All of those cases involve Republicans.

The News attempted to contact the tipsters in these three cases as well, and reached Eric Frank. He told police on Nov. 3 that he witnessed Ralph Holloway Thurman illegally voting at a Chester County polling place.

“I remember the day vividly. The gentleman who clearly came and voted twice: for himself, a registered Republican and his son, Kyle, a registered Democrat,” Frank said. “This guy knew exactly what he was doing.”

Frank said he wants to apply for Patrick’s bounty if Thurman is convicted. He already has plans for the reward — if he can figure out how to get it.

“My fiancé and I are looking for a house,” he said. Frank declined Fetterman’s call for the money to go to another cause, like a local food bank: “I’m all for philanthropy and giving back, but I don’t think I’d be donating the money.”

Thurman’s lawyer does not dispute that his client voted twice. But he said Thurman, a hearing-impaired and disabled war veteran, did nothing wrong because he thought poll workers told him he could vote on behalf of his son.

“This conversation took place through two people wearing masks and a thick plexiglass divider in a large gymnasium where multiple people were speaking and echoes were bountiful,” attorney Jeff Oster told The News in an emailed statement.

At a recent hearing, another lawyer for Thurman suggested Frank turned his client in to get access to the reward money, according to The Daily Local News in Chester County. Frank said that’s impossible. Patrick announced his cash rewards on Nov. 10 — a full week after Frank alerted law enforcement about Thurman’s alleged repeated voting.

In a phone interview, Fetterman criticized Republicans for using a rare crime to make false claims about widespread fraud in blue states. He also does not expect Patrick to issue rewards to Pennsylvanians because the cases involved only allegations of illegal voting by Republicans.

“This wasn’t the kind of voter fraud he wanted to find,” Fetterman said.

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