Dallas DA probes potential election crimes in a racially charged Irving contest

In her debut as a volunteer poll watcher for an Irving City Council runoff, Mona Elshenawy says she got a crash course in how easily election rules can be broken.

Her job: keep her eyes peeled for antics that could interfere with voting, such as candidates trying to recruit voters within 100 feet of the polling place. Or campaign volunteers talking to voters or using their cellphones inside the voting room.

But soon after Elshenawy arrived at her assigned polling place on June 16, she witnessed the eventual winner, Al Zapanta, and two of his campaign workers violate those rules, she said in a complaint to the Dallas County Elections Department. She also discovered that her own appointment as a poll watcher — by Zapanta’s opponent Shayan Elahi — broke the rules because she lives in Dallas, not Irving.

The Dallas district attorney’s office has launched an investigation into Elshenawy’s allegations. The office declined to provide details, saying that could interfere with the prosecution of election crimes.

Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/irving/2018/08/16/dallas-da-probes-potential-election-crimes-racially-charged-irving-contest