MAJORITY OF RACES SEWN UP BEFORE ELECTION DAY, MAIL-IN AND VOTER ABUSE VOTES MADE CHEEZMEH IRRELEVANT

By Juan Montoya
Even before day broke on Tuesday, Cameron County candidates Yolanda Teran Begum and Pete Avila had already lost the election.
A survey of the totals cast in the local races indicates that between the mail-in votes and the early voting, the fate of the Begum and Avila candidacy had already been decided. Both came out on the short end of the mail-in ballots. In the case of Begum, her 142 mail-ins did not equal the 319 ballots generated by the well-greased and practised political forces of the Ernie and Norma Hernandez on behalf of their daughter Erin Hernandez Garcia.

That 177 deficit was one from which the Begum campaign could not recover. Even as Begum's supporters complained of the blatant voting abuses perpetrated in the open daylight in front of the Cameron County Courthouse, at the Crsito Rey Catholic Church site, and at the Centro Comunitario site at Cameron Park involving the coercion of votes on behalf of her opponent by her politiqueros, the early walk-in vote totals indicate that Begum matched Hernandez well by coming short by only 85 votes. 

That put her 262 votes behind when dawn broke on Tuesday morning. And even though she actually won the voting on election day by 110 votes, it still left her 152 votes short to cover the mail-in and walk-in totals. Erin's 177 mail-in advantage was the deciding factor.

The story was the same for Avila, who was 352 votes behind Gomez after the mail-in votes were counted. He also fell an additional 201 during the early voting period. And even though, like Begum, Pete actually beat Abel by 208 votes on election day, he could not make up the accumulated 553-vote difference he fell behind on the mail-in and walk-in votes. He behind 352 votes int he mail-in and lost by 351 votes.

Luis Saenz, in his battle with mail-in favored candidate Carlos Masso was the only candidate in these three local races who overcame the 198-vote deficit in mail-in votes. He had a 164-vote advantage in the early walk-in vote to neutralize Masso's mail-in edge and woke up on Tuesday only 34 votes behind. The turnout on his behalf on Tuesday favored Saenz and his election-day total of 3,570 not only made up those votes, but propelled him over the top by 351 votes, a slim victory for a countywide race.

Another candidate who won the election districtwide but lost at home despite huge mail-in ballots was Ruben Cortez, the victor in the Texas School Board of Education. He beat Sanchez with a huge turnout in Hidalgo County by more than 4,000 votes even though he lost by 2,000 in Nueces County, but lost in Cameron despite his 320-mail-in vote advantage here.
His opponent Celeste Zepeda-Sanchez beat Cortez in the walk-in early vote by 506, putting her ahead by 186 votes by election day. Combined with her 967 votes on election day, and Sanchez trounced Cortez in his home county by 1,053 votes only to lose to him big in Hidalgo (by 4,000 politiquero votes) and lose the district election.
Overall, Cortez edged out Sanchez by a mere 458 votes. (50%-49%)
Now, instead of South Texas having an educator and administrator with 45 years of classroom experience and curriculum expert, we will be represented by someone with a high school equivalency certificate and a penchant to hobnob with vendors and political favors. Lucky us. 

Those, of course, are just the numbers. Hidden behind them looms a problematic future for the Cameron County Democratic Party. In the course of running their elections, they have allowed wide-scale voter abuse and fraud before the eyes of the county and the electorate of both parties.

The victories that can be ascribed to the abuse of the mail-in process and the ferrying of coerced votes before the very eyes of the officials responsible for maintaining the process fair and equitable will came back to haunt both the party and the county government charged with overseeing them to assure the process is kept clean and above reproach.

In this, they have failed miserably and some might say, criminally. 

In allowing the Ernie Hernandez political machine to tighten its grip in local politics, the Democratic Party has shown that it is willing to turn a blind eye to the abuses described above. These "victories" could well come back to haunt the party and the Hernandezes as well as soon as this coming November.

The Begum supporters were not a known factor within the usual political equation in the Brownsville area. The core was a center of the longtime Brownsville-Matamoros commercial class which had taken in interest in local politics as many of them lost interest in either living or doing business in Matamoros. They lived with us, their kids went to school here and many of them work and do business here as well as across the river. 

They were tired of fixed elections, paid political operatives, ward heelers and the antics of the PRI in Mexico. They took a gamble and decided to enter the political fray here with one of their own.

"And we thought Mexico was bad," is a phrase often heard in their ranks.
These innocents were not ready for the xenophobic, ethnocentric twist of local politics that emerged almost immediately as their candidate announced her intentions to run. And as they stood watching in amazement and anger as their votes were nullified by bought mail-in votes and paid politiqueros coercing the mentally-impaired and unwilling elderly to vote against them, many wondered whether there is really a home for them in the Democratic Party.

Belatedly, they realized that Begum was not only running against her opponent, but rather, against the entire machinery of the local Democrats. That Begum's gallant campaign was able to come within 152 votes of matching the machine's output is a testament that this group is a force that must either be reckoned with in the future, or the party risks quickly losing their support because of their disenchantment at the shabby treatment afforded them and their candidate.

"The new chairwoman for the Democratic Party made it known that she favored Erin over Yolanda," said one of her supporters. "She was not an honest broker to all Democrats. And after what the Hernandez camp did to our candidate, do they really expect us to embrace them come November? You know, 4,164 angry votes can change any election."
With the mail-in vote obviously determining the important local races, local cyberpolitiquero group Cheezmeh proved to be irrelevant. Their champion Masso was swamped not by the manufactured mail-in and hauled in vote, but rather by the turnout on election day. And in Erin's case, the 152 vote difference after Erin's 177 mail-in advantage indicates that even a nominal increase in the vote could have overturned the totals. Cheezmeh's influence? Whatever spin they want to put on it.
Otherwise, it appears to be negligible.