HISTORY REPEATED: FIRST TIME TRAGEDY, SECOND, A FARCE

By Juan Montoya
Now we know why after process servers for the Yolanda Begum voter fraud lawsuit against Erin Hernandez Garcia served close to 100 subpoenas to potential witnesses, less than 20 showed up at the Cameron Conty Courthouse.
Some of those subpoenaed witnesses now have told us that politiqueras associated with the Erin Hernandez campaign knocked on their doors and told them that despite the warnings on the documents served them, they need not show up at courts as it directed them under penalty of law.
At least one Cameron Park resident said he ran off the politiquera and told her he had gotten in enough trouble listening to her before when he canst his ballot by mail and she took his and his mother's ballot with her promising to mail it for him.
Afterwards, the woman's name did not appear on the mail envelope. A man's name appeared instead.
The Texas Election Code is very specific on whose name must appear on the mail-in envelope. If anyone handled it, or if anyone assisted the voter, his or her name must appear on either the application or the mail-in envelope.
"I told her that the last time I listened to her it had resulted in me getting subpoenaed by the court because there were irregularities with my mail-in vote," he said. "I told her I was going to go and I was there at 9 a.m."
The voter then said that the woman then went down the street with a list to knock on doors and to give them the same message: that they didn't have to appear in court.
On the other side of town, at the Brownsville Housing Authority High Rise, some of the subpoenaed witnesses say that politiqueras such as Herminia Becerra and Tomasita Chavez also tried to dissuade them from appearing in court. A Begum supporter snapped a picture of super politiquera Becerra at the high rise at right.
There are at least two witnesses who said that Chavez went as far as taking the subpoenas from those who had been served and telling them not to go.
When witnesses arrived at the courthouse, they were met by other politiqueras who discouraged them from entering. Inside, Begum supporters who had taken coffee and pastries for the mostly elderly witnesses were separated from them even though they were going to testify on Begum's behalf by court bailiffs, specifically, a female bailiff at the door.
It was later learned that the same bailiff had met the Begum team members who were knocking on doors to find potential wrongdoing by Hernandez's campaign workers and ran them off from her personal residence.
"We were looking into whether someone had voted twice at that address and she got very belligerent and ran us off," said a worker. "We were surprised to find her at the courthouse."
That same bailiff told witnesses they had to leave when the court recessed from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. and kept a couple separated from Begum's supporters by keeping them in a separate office away from them.
"All of Ernie Hernandez's people were there," said one. "Even Raul Salazar, his precinct assistant administrator was standing by the grand jury door. It was all rigged to intimidate the witnesses who did appear despite their discouraging them from going."
And so, just as they did in the first voter fraud trial against Ernie Hernandez in his runoff race against Ruben Peña two years ago, the Hernandez political machine blatantly subverted not only the election, but also the judicial process in the quest to impose a system of patronage and political domination in violation of all applicable laws.
And while some may say that the visiting judge's dictum that not enough time was left to hear the merits of the case and would interfere with the printing of the ballots, the fact remains that enough evidence would have been presented by the Begum legal team to prove – once again – that massive voter fraud was perpetrated in the runoff election that resulted in a victory for Erin Hernandez.