A voter fraud investigation in Dallas County continues to deepen with prosecutors asking a judge late last week to impound a "suspicious box" of mail-in ballot applications they believe may be tied to a political candidate in the May election.

Investigators appear to be homing in on the candidate, who they did not name in new court documents but described as a suspect who lives in Grand Prairie. Authorities are also looking into two other suspects who are connected to the candidate and who prosecutors say assisted voters in mailing ballots in envelopes signed with suspected forged signatures. Those votes were rejected from being counted.

The filing Friday by the district attorney's office revealed new details in a wide-ranging investigation of thousands of suspicious mail-in ballots and ballot applications submitted in West Dallas and Grand Prairie since last year. This year, prosecutors have investigated possible fraud in the handling of more than 1,200 mail-in ballot applications that generated at least 459 ballots from West Dallas, Grand Prairie and parts of Oak Cliff, Assistant District Attorney Andy Chatham said in March.

In January, the county elections office received a box labeled "intocables" — "untouchables" in Spanish. The box contained a stack of applications for mail-in ballots, most of which indicated the voters were assisted by the candidate in Grand Prairie, prosecutors said.

Annette and Steve Perkins of Grand Prairie both received Dallas County ballots in the mail last year that they did not request. (David Woo / Staff Photographer)

Officials then reviewed the carrier envelopes containing those voters' mailed ballots. Those envelopes showed the voters were mostly assisted by the other two suspects, prosecutors said. All three suspects were noted in the election records as living at the same address in Grand Prairie, according to court documents.

Voters are eligible to vote by mail if they are at least 65 years old or disabled, among other qualifications. Voters are eligible for assistance with their mail-in ballot if they can't write or see because of a physical disability, or can't read the language the ballot is written in.

First Assistant District Attorney Mike Snipes declined to comment on the matter, citing the ongoing investigation.

The district attorney's criminal inquiry into voter fraud in Grand Prairie and West Dallas began in May 2017, when 700 suspicious ballots were sequestered. Many were linked to one witness, a "Jose Rodriguez."

Many senior citizens in both areas reported receiving mail-in ballots they did not request, meaning their signatures were forged. Some said they were visited by a pushy man claiming to work for the county who wanted to collect their ballots. One woman demanded to see the man's driver's license and snapped a photo of it on her cell phone, leading investigators to arrest a suspect: Miguel Hernandez.

Miguel Hernandez, 28, pleaded guilty last month to illegally returning a marked ballot, a misdemeanor. (Dallas County Sheriff's Department)

Hernandez, 28, pleaded guilty last month to a misdemeanor charge of illegally returning a marked ballot. He is cooperating with the investigation, said his lawyer, Bruce Anton.

It's unclear whether Hernandez's case is related to the current investigation. However, last year, fraud in Grand Prairie was publicly discussed by two local campaign workers — Jose Barrientos and Sidney Williams — who were later identified by Chatham, the prosecutor, as persons of interest in the investigation.

Neither man has been accused of a crime. Barrientos did not respond to requests for comment. Williams said prosecutors have cleared him of any suspicion and that he will be a witness in the case, not a target.

Campaign worker Jose Barrientos, 50, was a person of interest in the Dallas County ballot fraud investigation, authorities say. (Courtesy)

In secretly recorded conversations that Williams provided last year to WFAA-TV in exchange for payment, Barrientos said that David Espinosa, a Grand Prairie politician, planned to collect 25,000 fraudulent absentee ballots to unseat the Grand Prairie mayor.

Espinosa successfully ran for re-election on the Grand Prairie ISD board of trustees in May. He won his seat by 150 votes.

Compared to other Grand Prairie candidates, Espinosa received a disproportionately high number of mail-in ballot votes: 188 of his total 297 votes were mail-in ballots. His opponent, Julie Ford-Mitchell, received 51 mail-in votes of a total 144 votes. In concurrent races for Grand Prairie City Council, no candidate received more mail-in votes than in-person votes.

In an interview Tuesday, Espinosa said he was unaware of any investigation into voter fraud in Grand Prairie. He said the news media was making up claims of voter fraud to suppress senior citizens' votes. He said he does not know Hernandez or Williams and said he had met Barrientos at political events on several occasions, but was not affiliated with him.

Grand Prairie ISD board member David Espinosa (Grand Prairie ISD / Grand Prairie ISD)

Authorities have not named Espinosa as a suspect in the case.

"What the media is feeding the people is voter suppression," Espinosa said. "When seniors want to vote by mail they're scared to vote by mail because of what you guys have done."

Espinosa said his high proportion of mail-in votes was due to his "great campaign team" that canvased neighborhoods. He said anyone found to have engaged in voter fraud should face serious consequences in the justice system.

"I'm an elected official who represents 30,000 students," Espinosa said. "I would not put myself in that situation."

In response to the controversy last year, the Texas Legislature and Dallas County commissioners passed new measures to curb mail-in voter fraud and the abuse of elderly voters.

Under the new county rules, candidates must be officially filed to run before their campaigns can obtain 200 absentee ballot applications.

Under a new state law, penalties for some election crimes have been increased. Misdemeanors became felonies, and low-level felonies were upgraded. For example, fraudulent use of a ballot rose from a state jail felony to a third-degree felony, punishable by two to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.