A Texas Democratic-aligned political organization acknowledges using paid “relational organizing.” An undercover recording has triggered allegations of vote buying — but the publicly available evidence does not yet establish that participants were paid in exchange for actually casting a ballot.
An undercover video involving an organizer for Texas Majority PAC has raised questions about where lawful paid political organizing ends and illegal payment for voting begins.
In the recording, Sky McAdams, identified in reporting as an organizing manager for Texas Majority PAC, discusses a program under which participants were allegedly paid $25 to attend a one-hour Zoom session about voting.
McAdams describes the arrangement in striking terms, calling it essentially a “roundabout way of paying people for their votes.”
That statement has led to accusations that the program constituted vote buying.
However, a review of federal law, Texas law, Federal Election Commission records and publicly available materials from the political organizations involved shows that the legal conclusion is more complicated.
The available evidence confirms that paid political organizing occurred.
It does not, by itself, establish that individuals received money specifically in exchange for casting a ballot or voting for a particular candidate.
Key Facts
Townhall published the undercover recording on September 16, 2026.
According to the report, McAdams said:
“We are paying people $25 to attend a one-hour Zoom class to learn why voting is important…”
He then characterized the arrangement as effectively an indirect method of paying people for votes.
Townhall’s report can be reviewed here:
Texas Majority PAC subsequently rejected McAdams’ characterization.
According to subsequent reporting, the PAC said participants were being compensated for grassroots organizing work and described McAdams’ account as inaccurate. The organization also said he had been fired.
The controversy is particularly significant because Texas Majority PAC has publicly promoted compensated “relational organizing” programs.
The Paid Program Is Real
An official website paid for by Texas Majority PAC describes a program called Rally for Texas.
The website openly recruits what it calls paid Voting Ambassadors.
Participants are instructed to communicate with friends and family, help them develop voting plans and remind them to vote.
The published program requirements include:
- attending a virtual onboarding event;
- making and sharing voting plans with 10 contacts;
- reminding those contacts to vote.
According to the site, ambassadors who satisfy the requirements receive a $100 stipend.
The website states:
“Join us as a paid Voting Ambassador.”
It also describes Blue Texas as a coordinated effort involving Texas Majority PAC, the Texas Democratic Party and county Democratic organizations.
Official program page:
The $100 program displayed on that website should not automatically be assumed to be identical to the separate $25 Zoom arrangement described in the undercover recording.
However, it independently establishes that Texas Majority PAC has used compensated relational organizing as an electoral strategy.
What Is “Relational Organizing”?
Relational organizing differs from conventional door-to-door canvassing.
Instead of asking campaign workers to approach strangers, political organizations recruit people to contact individuals they already know — friends, relatives, coworkers and acquaintances.
Rally for Texas describes the concept as having people communicate with their existing social networks about elections and candidates.
The political objective is clear: encourage participation and persuade voters through trusted personal relationships.
Paying people to perform political organizing work is not inherently illegal.
The key legal question is what the payment is actually purchasing.
What Federal Law Says
Federal law explicitly prohibits paying someone for voting in certain elections.
52 U.S.C. § 10307(c)
The statute provides criminal penalties for anyone who:
“pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting”
when the covered election includes specified federal offices, including the U.S. Senate.
U.S. Department of Justice:
https://www.justice.gov/crt/title-52-voting-and-elections-subtitle-i-and-ii
The Justice Department also summarizes federal election-fraud law by stating that paying voters to register or to vote in elections where a federal candidate is on the ballot can provide a basis for federal prosecution.
DOJ Federal Election Fraud Fact Sheet:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-nh/pr/federal-election-fraud-fact-sheet
18 U.S.C. § 597
A separate federal statute prohibits expenditures made in consideration for a person’s vote — or for withholding a vote — involving a federal candidate.
The Department of Justice’s current Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses manual identifies 18 U.S.C. § 597 as applying to:
payments to vote, or to refrain from voting, for a federal candidate.
DOJ manual:
https://www.justice.gov/criminal/file/1029066/dl
The distinction is critical.
Paying someone to work on a campaign or voter-mobilization operation is not the same legal act as paying that person for his or her vote.
Texas Law Also Draws a Line
Texas law separately regulates compensated activity involving ballots.
Texas Election Code §276.015 defines “vote harvesting services” as certain in-person interactions with voters conducted in the physical presence of an official ballot and intended to deliver votes for a candidate or measure.
The statute prohibits knowingly providing those services in exchange for compensation and also prohibits knowingly paying someone for such services.
Texas Election Code:
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/EL/pdf/EL.276.pdf
That provision is narrower than ordinary relational organizing because it specifically concerns interactions in the physical presence of a ballot.
Nothing reviewed for this article establishes that the Texas Majority PAC program involved that conduct.
Claim-by-Claim Review
Claim: Texas Majority PAC pays people to conduct voter outreach.
Confirmed.
The organization’s own Rally for Texas website openly advertises paid Voting Ambassador positions and a stipend for completing specified organizing duties.
Source:
Claim: An organizer said participants were being paid $25 to attend a voting-related Zoom session.
Confirmed as a statement appearing in the undercover recording.
Townhall published the recording and attributed the remarks to Sky McAdams.
Source:
Claim: McAdams characterized the arrangement as an indirect way of paying for votes.
Confirmed as his recorded characterization.
That statement is important evidence regarding how one organizer viewed the program.
But an employee’s characterization does not itself establish that every legal element of voter bribery was satisfied.
Claim: Texas Majority PAC says it was paying people for their votes.
Not confirmed.
The organization’s stated position is the opposite.
According to published reporting, Texas Majority PAC said participants were paid for grassroots organizing work and that McAdams had incorrectly described the program.
Claim: Participants received money only if they personally voted.
Not established by the evidence reviewed.
The publicly available Rally for Texas requirements reviewed by Midtown Tribune describe compensation for completing organizing activities.
They do not state that an ambassador must personally cast a ballot in order to receive the stipend.
Claim: Participants were paid to vote specifically for Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.
Not established by the available documentation.
The evidence reviewed does not show a payment contract requiring recipients to cast their personal ballots for Talarico.
Claim: James Talarico personally created or directed the payment program.
Not established by the records reviewed.
Federal Election Commission records identify Talarico for Texas as Talarico’s principal campaign committee.
Official FEC record:
https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/S6TX00479/?cycle=2026
The FEC also distinguishes candidate committees from spending undertaken by other political organizations.
The material reviewed for this article does not establish that Talarico personally designed or ordered the specific compensation arrangement described in the undercover video.
What Remains Unknown
Several pieces of information would be necessary to determine how the disputed $25 program actually operated.
Among them:
- the written participant agreement;
- payment records;
- the full Zoom training materials;
- internal instructions provided to organizers;
- requirements participants had to satisfy before receiving payment;
- whether proof of voting was requested;
- whether payment depended on how a participant voted;
- communications between Texas Majority PAC and Relentless concerning the program.
Without those records, it is difficult to determine whether the payment was compensation for political work, compensation for attending training, or consideration legally tied to voting.
Congressional Request for Investigation
The controversy has now reached Congress.
On September 18, 2026, Rep. Pat Fallon of Texas reportedly sent a letter requesting that the Department of Justice investigate Texas Majority PAC and Relentless over the allegations.
Fallon’s request represents an allegation and request for law-enforcement review — not a determination that a crime occurred.
As of this article’s publication, Midtown Tribune has not identified an official DOJ announcement establishing that the Department has opened a criminal case arising from the recording.
That distinction is important.
A congressional request for an investigation is not equivalent to a criminal charge, indictment or finding of wrongdoing.
What Is Confirmed
The evidence currently supports several specific conclusions.
Texas Majority PAC participates in compensated relational organizing.
Its official Rally for Texas website openly describes paid Voting Ambassadors.
An organizer associated with the PAC was recorded discussing a separate $25 Zoom program.
That organizer used language suggesting that he regarded the program as an indirect method of paying people for votes.
Texas Majority PAC subsequently rejected his description and reportedly terminated him.
Federal law prohibits paying someone in consideration for voting in covered federal elections.
All of those points can be documented.
What Is Not Yet Confirmed
The publicly available evidence reviewed by Midtown Tribune does not establish that:
- a recipient had to vote before receiving the payment;
- payment depended on voting for James Talarico;
- organizers verified participants’ ballots;
- Talarico personally ordered the payment system;
- a court or federal agency has determined that the program violated federal vote-buying law.
Those are materially different claims.
They should not be presented as established facts without additional evidence.
Analysis
The strongest part of the controversy is not simply that political organizers were being paid.
Paid campaign staff, canvassers and political organizers are routine features of American elections.
The more consequential evidence is McAdams’ own description of the arrangement.
When an organizer says on camera that a payment system is effectively a “roundabout” method of paying for votes, the statement reasonably raises questions about the program’s purpose and design.
But criminal statutes generally turn on conduct and specific elements, not political rhetoric or an employee’s informal characterization.
For federal vote-buying law, one of the central factual questions is whether money or another benefit was actually offered in consideration for voting.
That question cannot be answered conclusively simply by demonstrating that a voter received compensation from a political organization.
Investigators would need to determine what participants were told they were being paid to do and what conditions controlled payment.
Why This Matters
The controversy highlights a broader issue as campaigns increasingly use sophisticated relational-organizing programs.
Traditional voter outreach might involve a paid canvasser knocking on hundreds of strangers’ doors.
Relational organizing instead compensates or recruits individuals to influence people already inside their personal networks.
That may make voter outreach more effective.
It also makes transparency about compensation rules especially important.
If compensation is for time spent organizing, contacting voters or completing political work, that is one category of activity.
If compensation is conditioned on the recipient registering, casting a ballot or voting a particular way, federal law can present a very different legal situation.
The distinction should apply consistently regardless of which political party, campaign or organization is involved.
Conclusion
The undercover video contains a statement that deserves scrutiny.
An organizer associated with Texas Majority PAC explicitly characterized a paid political-outreach arrangement as essentially an indirect way of paying people for votes.
At the same time, the evidence currently available does not establish the broader claim that Texas Majority PAC literally paid individuals in exchange for their ballots.
Official program materials confirm compensated relational organizing, while federal law clearly prohibits payments made for voting.
Determining whether those two facts intersected in an illegal way requires evidence about the actual conditions of payment.
Until those records are available — or law enforcement or a court makes a determination — the most precise description is that serious questions have been raised about a paid voter-outreach program, while an actual vote-buying violation has not yet been established by the publicly available evidence.
Sources
U.S. Department of Justice — 52 U.S.C. §10307
https://www.justice.gov/crt/title-52-voting-and-elections-subtitle-i-and-ii
U.S. Department of Justice — Federal Election Fraud Fact Sheet
https://www.justice.gov/usao-nh/pr/federal-election-fraud-fact-sheet
U.S. Department of Justice — Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses
https://www.justice.gov/criminal/file/1029066/dl
Texas Election Code — Chapter 276
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/EL/pdf/EL.276.pdf
Federal Election Commission — James Talarico
https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/S6TX00479/?cycle=2026
Rally for Texas — Official Program Website
https://www.rallyfortexas.com/
Townhall — Undercover Video Report, September 16, 2026
https://townhall.com/news/kyleolson/2026/09/16/texas-dem-operative-dishes-on-shady-as-fk-plan-to-pay-for-votes-undercover-video-shows-n2683016
Editorial Note
Midtown Tribune distinguishes allegations captured in undercover recordings from facts established through official records. References to possible violations of election law in this article describe allegations or legal questions unless an official finding is specifically identified.
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