As Tarrant County's District Attorney, Phil Sorrells decides which crimes get prosecuted. When he took office in 2023, one of his first moves was starting a special unit to hunt for voter fraud, with fellow Republican Tim O'Hare, the head of county government. In three years, the task force received only 193 tips. Two people have been charged with misdemeanor crimes, but no one has been convicted.
Crystal Mason, a Fort Worth mom and grandmother, was sentenced to five years in prison for casting a ballot that was never even counted. She said she didn't know she wasn't allowed to vote while on probation. In 2024, an appeals court threw out her conviction, but Sorrells fought to bring it back: "I want would-be illegal voters to know that we're watching." Mason said the real goal was "to scare voters from the poll." In September 2026, Texas's highest criminal court ended her case for good, and now Mason has set her sights on making sure Sorrells isn't re-elected.
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Sorrells’s take on Texas values
In Feb 2023 Sorrells joined County Judge Tim O'Hare and Sheriff Bill Waybourn to launch an "election integrity" task force to hunt for voter fraud. It took in 77 complaints and referred one case for prosecution (KERA, Oct 2023). A state audit of the 2020 election found no evidence of widespread fraud in Tarrant County, and voter fraud is rare in Texas: 60 convictions out of more than 65 million votes from 2005 to 2017 (Heritage Foundation).