PA' QUE NOS HACEMOS...

By Juan Montoya

Every candidate knows that when you run in Brownsville or in Cameron County there is a bloc of between 300 to 500 mail-in votes that can be had if you pay people to seek it out and get it.
It has happened since way before our time and it will happen after we're gone.
To wring your hands and say that no such votes exist and that you can have some of them if you don't curry the favor of those people who cultivate them from election to election is to fool yourself.
When we ran the first campaign for Lucino Rosenbaum out of the Southmost area, we never knew what hit us. After we demolished the incumbent D.J. Lerma in the primary, we were stunned to get beat at the courthouse. Of course, there were other factors there. Our representatives were worried about a late precinct box and the judge told them he had delivered it more than an hour to the district clerk upstairs. When he got there, he found the clerk, a sheriff and a deputy sheriff busy writing in the names of people who hadn't voted.
We lost to the machine, and we lost the mail-in votes of the politiqueras, too. The heartbreak in the barrio of having come so close only to have the election stolen by the courthouse crowd and politiqueras was palpable.
Recounts didn't matter. The numbers would remain the same.
In subsequent elections, these ladies (and men) would approach the candidate and offer their services.
"Yo tengo 200," one would say.
"Yo tengo 150," another would offer.
Their claims, of course, were always inflated. The more they could make the candidate believe, the more they could charge.
At $100 to $150 a week for them to hustle their charges much like ward heelers in Chicago or New York, these politiqueras (and politiqueros) would come by for their envelope every Friday.
Their charges were often house-bound elderly or people who just wanted to be noticed by someone. When election time came around, Cone, Mary, Raul, Nati, Rosie, or any of a score of ward heelers would bring them their application for absentee voter by mail and they would sign and the heeler would mail it to Tencha at the courthouse.
When the voter got the ballot in the mail, she would call her heeler and they would come and have her (or him) vote and sign it and mail them by the batch.
Realistically, the candidate never knew unless he saw the mail-in ballot (they called la pol tax) signed before it was mailed. These heelers didn't want to reveal who their votes were and were loathe to reveal their names.
And candidates would have to be wary. These people could be persuaded to play both sides of the fence if the offer was good enough. They would be drawing their money from you, and drawing money from your opponent. You never knew until the results came in.
Everyone, from judges, district attorneys, to city and county commissioners, sheriffs, and even constables, knew they had to counter their opponents use of these ward heelers to stay in the contest.
The reaction after the election results were announced were predictable. The losing candidates blamed the politiqueras for their loss and vowed to bring the Texas Rangers into the picture. The winning candidate would claim his opponent didn't work that vote as hard as he did.
Is it an abominable practice?
Sure it is, but who is going to sit in judgment of this?
All elected officials – school, port, college, judicial, law enforcement – have to compete in this arena or risk losing.
Can you imagine if Ruben Peña puts a senile lady on the stand and she can't remember who she voted for? Hell, she probably can't remember what she had for breakfast, if she ate at all.
And what if a politiquera gets up on the stand and admit she helped people vote for pay from a candidate? What if further she turns around and tells the judge that she helped her, too?
Or for that matter, the district attorney?
Now everyone from Peña, a pro-Peña blogger, a would-be greasy-spoon gonzo "journalist," and a staunch (if not indignant) defender of alternative sexual preferences are up in arms over the fact that this system exists. Where were they when Rick Zayas demolished Lehman with a multitude of mail-in votes?
Was it all right then because they supported the winner?
What do ad agencies do when they take candidates money? They'll attract the vote for you, for a price. And the people who are out there on the streets with signs, do you think they are doing it for the ecstasy of participating in the political process?
There will be a hearing Monday to hear out Peña's motion to declare enough mail-in votes void so that he can win the election. Given his talent to bend the system to his side because of his political and family contacts, he might stand half a chance.
But he knew what he was facing when he got in this race and entered it with his eyes wide open.
I've been beaten by Ernie Hernandez before with his use of these mail-in votes. I remember when I helped Joe Torres run against him. We were demolished. But we realized that the whole system turned a blind eye to this and were themselves participants in it. Should we have just withdrawn from political participation?
Hernandez knows that the bloc of votes is there and that it can make or break you if you don't try to get it. So did Ruben. That he was too chintzy to pay these people for them to seek out these charges and get their vote was his problem.