Illegal-Voting Arrests in Montgomery County: What Texas Law Says About Voting After a Felony Conviction

What Changed, and When

What changed last week is enforcement, not the law. The Election Code sections involved have read the same way since September 1, 2023. According to the announcement published by the Office of the Attorney General, the sequence ran as follows.

October 27, 2026 — a tip. The release states that a citizen reported that convicted felons who were incarcerated, on parole, or on probation had allegedly cast ballots in Harris County, and provided open-source information to support the allegation.

The investigation. The release states that the Election Integrity Unit opened an investigation, that analysts verified the identities of the individuals, reviewed their voter registration records, and examined whether they had cast ballots in the 2026 election. Investigators then referred the identified individuals to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for verification of their criminal-justice status. Per the release, the department confirmed that multiple individuals were on parole when they cast their ballots.

October 30, 2026 — warrants and arrests. The release states that arrest warrants were issued in Montgomery County for the individuals identified so far, and that officers from the Office of the Attorney General arrested them. KTRH in Houston reported the arrests the next day, describing the ballots as cast during early voting and the arrests as made Friday in Montgomery County, north of Houston.

What has not been published. Several things that usually matter are absent from the public record so far. The release gives no number of people arrested — it says “multiple individuals” and “individuals identified thus far” — and KTRH reported only “several.” No one is named. No charging instrument, indictment, or specific charge has been published; both the release and the coverage refer generally to potential violations of the Texas Election Code. The release also states that the unit is investigating additional reports.

An arrest is an accusation. A warrant reflects a finding of probable cause, not guilt. Everyone arrested is presumed innocent, and in a case under this statute the State carries the burden of proving a specific mental state, described below.

Who in Texas This Reaches

Most immediately, the people arrested in Montgomery County. Beyond them, this touches a much larger group: Texans with a felony conviction who are currently serving some part of a sentence — in prison, on parole, or on community supervision or probation — and Texans who have finished and whose eligibility has already returned.

On scale, the most recent federal count is in Probation and Parole in the United States, 2024 (NCJ 311290), published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in April 2026. At year-end 2024 it reported 381,330 adults on probation in Texas, and a Texas community-supervision total of roughly 473,900 adults, rounded to the nearest hundred. That report does not publish a separate Texas parole figure, so the parole share is not something this page can state precisely, and it is not stated in the Attorney General’s release either.

Two dates give the immediate context. Early voting for the 2026 general election has already taken place, which is when the release says these ballots were cast, and election day is November 3, 2026. The release states that additional reports are under investigation.

What This Changes Legally

Nothing in the Election Code changed on October 30. What the arrests do is put two sections in front of people who may never have read them. Both are short.

1. Who counts as a qualified voter after a felony conviction. Texas Election Code Section 11.002(a)(4) defines a “qualified voter” as a person who “has not been finally convicted of a felony or, if so convicted, has: (A) fully discharged the person’s sentence, including any term of incarceration, parole, or supervision, or completed a period of probation ordered by any court; or (B) been pardoned or otherwise released from the resulting disability to vote.”

Two consequences follow from that text, and they run in opposite directions.

• Eligibility comes back by operation of the statute. Subsection (A) and subsection (B) are alternatives. Once a sentence is fully discharged, the statute does not require a pardon, a clemency petition, or any separate restoration application. In Texas, a felony conviction is not a permanent bar to voting.
• Parole and supervision are part of the sentence. The statute spells that out: “including any term of incarceration, parole, or supervision.” Release from prison is not, on the face of this text, the end of the sentence.

2. Deferred adjudication is treated differently. Section 11.002(b) states: “For purposes of Subsection (a)(4), a person is not considered to have been finally convicted of an offense for which the criminal proceedings are deferred without an adjudication of guilt.” Whether a given case was a conviction or a deferred adjudication is a question answered by the judgment in the court file, not by memory.

3. The illegal-voting statute has a knowledge element. Texas Election Code Section 64.012(a)(1) makes it an offense if a person “knowingly or intentionally … votes or attempts to vote in an election in which the person knows the person is not eligible to vote.” The words “knows the person is not eligible” are doing work: on the face of the statute, voting while ineligible and voting while knowing you are ineligible are not the same thing.

4. The punishment range. Section 64.012(b) provides that the offense “is a felony of the second degree unless the person is convicted of an attempt, in which event it is a state jail felony.” Under Texas Penal Code Section 12.33, a second-degree felony carries imprisonment of not less than 2 years and not more than 20 years, plus a possible fine of up to $10,000. Under Section 12.35, a state jail felony carries confinement of not less than 180 days and not more than 2 years, plus a possible fine of up to $10,000.

5. A provisional-ballot affidavit alone is not enough. Section 64.012(c) provides that a person “may not be convicted solely upon the fact that the person signed a provisional ballot affidavit under Section 63.011 unless corroborated by other evidence that the person knowingly committed the offense.”

6. The offense level has moved twice in recent years. The statutory history printed with Section 64.012 records an amendment by Senate Bill 1 in the 2021 second called session, effective December 2, 2021, and a further amendment by House Bill 1243 in the 2023 regular session, effective September 1, 2023. The second-degree felony level in place today dates from that 2023 amendment, which means conduct is measured against the statute as it stood at the time.

Nothing on this page tells any individual reader whether they are eligible to vote, whether their sentence is fully discharged, or how any case will come out. No honest page could: each of those turns on documents in a specific file. What this page does say is that the statutory text above is public, that it is short, and that it is checkable against paperwork.

What Kind of Option Might Apply

Nothing here is advice about any individual case. These are the kinds of questions criminal defense attorneys describe working through when an illegal-voting allegation arrives:

• What the judgment actually says. Whether the underlying case produced a final felony conviction, a deferred adjudication, a misdemeanor, or a reduced plea is recorded in the court file, and Section 11.002(b) treats one of those categories differently from the others.
• When the sentence was discharged, on paper. Discharge certificates, parole records, community-supervision termination orders and the department’s own records carry dates, and the dates are comparable to the date a ballot was cast.
• What the person was told, and by whom. A voter registration certificate that arrived in the mail, an acceptance at a polling place, or an instruction from an official are the kinds of facts attorneys point to on the knowledge element in Section 64.012(a)(1).
• Whether a provisional ballot was involved. Section 64.012(c) sets a corroboration requirement where the evidence rests on a signed provisional-ballot affidavit.
• Which version of the statute governs. The offense level changed in December 2021 and again in September 2023, so the date of the conduct matters.
• Bond, arraignment and the court’s calendar. Once a warrant has issued, a case runs on a docket, and the early settings arrive quickly.
• Collateral consequences. A pending felony allegation can reach employment, licensing, housing and an existing term of supervision, and attorneys describe mapping those out early.

Two related situations belong with a different kind of lawyer. A person who is not a United States citizen faces separate immigration questions that sit outside a criminal docket, and our earlier post on illegal-voting charges filed against green card holders in Texas covers that ground. And a person whose eligibility had already returned under Section 11.002(a)(4), yet who was kept from registering or from voting, may be describing a civil rights problem rather than a criminal one.

Talking to a lawyer about any of this costs nothing through this service.

Why Acting Quickly Can Matter

A warrant means a case is already moving. Bond conditions, the first setting and any appointment of counsel arrive on the court’s schedule rather than the defendant’s, and decisions made in the first days — including what a person says to investigators — tend to shape the rest.

The documents also age. Judgments and discharge paperwork get lost in moves. Registration correspondence gets thrown away. Polling-place records, poll-worker recollections and the registrar’s own file on a voter are all easier to assemble within weeks of an election than a year later, and several of them bear directly on what a person knew.

For anyone simply uncertain where they stand, the official sources are the county voter registrar and the Texas Secretary of State elections division, which maintain registration records. It is best to have a criminal defense lawyer review the judgment and the discharge paperwork before relying on anyone’s recollection of what a sentence included. If a lawyer in our network offers an initial consultation, it is free.

Sources

1. Attorney General Ken Paxton Announces Arrests of Convicted Felons for Illegally Voting in Texas, Office of the Attorney General of Texas, October 31, 2026 — the October 27 report, the Election Integrity Unit investigation, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice verification of parole status, and the October 30 warrants and arrests in Montgomery County (primary document).
2. Texas Election Code Chapter 11, Sections 11.001–11.002, Texas Constitution and Statutes — the “qualified voter” definition, the full-discharge language in Section 11.002(a)(4), and the deferred-adjudication rule in Section 11.002(b) (primary source).
3. Texas Election Code Section 64.012, Illegal Voting, Texas Constitution and Statutes — the knowledge element, the second-degree felony and state jail felony levels, the provisional-ballot corroboration requirement, and the 2021 and 2023 amendment history (primary source).
4. Texas Penal Code Chapter 12, Sections 12.33 and 12.35, Texas Constitution and Statutes — the second-degree felony and state jail felony punishment ranges quoted above (primary source).
5. Arrests Made for Illegal Voting, AG Paxton Says, KTRH NewsRadio 740, Houston, October 31, 2026 — independent reporting that several people were arrested Friday in Montgomery County and that the ballots were cast during early voting.
6. AG Paxton Announces Arrests of Convicted Felons for Illegally Voting in Texas, Montgomery County Police Reporter, October 31, 2026 — local coverage of the Montgomery County warrants.
7. Probation and Parole in the United States, 2024 (NCJ 311290), Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 2026 — the 381,330 adults on probation in Texas and the roughly 473,900 adult community-supervision total at year-end 2024 (primary source).
8. Voter Information, Texas Secretary of State — the state elections division page on registration and voter records.
9. Illegal-Voting Charges Against Green Card Holders in Texas, this site, September 16, 2026 — the citizenship side of the same statute, and why it reaches a different kind of lawyer.
10. A Ruling on Senate Bill 1 Mail-Ballot Identification and Voter Assistance, this site, August 15, 2026 — earlier coverage of Texas election-law litigation.