Six people in a rural Texas county have been indicted in a widening elections investigation led by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The county judge, two city council members and others are accused of vote harvesting.

Since the 2020 election, Texas Republicans have dramatically rewritten the state’s voting laws, which have made some long-standing practices illegal.

The Texas attorney general’s office searched the home of Cecilia Castellano and a Democratic legislative aide. It said it’s investigating vote harvesting. Activists called it “intimidation.”

PEARSALL, Texas – This article is copublished with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. The first death due to COVID-19 inside an immigration detention center was reported Wednesday. That town also has a large detention center, run by CoreCivic, another giant in the for-profit detention business. Immediately he became interested in the for-profit detention center visible from his home and started asking questions. “It’s been horrible,” said Yanet Cabrera, whose 54-year-old mother was recently transferred from Pearsall to another detention center in Laredo.