After starting about and hour and a half late past the scheduled 10 a.m. time to determine which of the 600 "provisional" and military mail-in votes cast in the November 6 election will be counted for the final tally, the 10 members of the Cameron County Ballot and Resolution board slogged on through the day without end in sight by 5 p.m.
Even though 144 military votes came in by Tuesday, Nov. 6, today there were only an additional four more votes from soldiers received at the elections office.
And as of 2:30 p.m., only 11 of the 600 provisional votes had been accepted by the board.
Even before today's debacle, observers say that the make-up of the board – appointed by the two major political parties in the county – left much to be desired.
"I see a huge problem here in that the members of the ballot board are the same people who are the members of the resolution board who will determine if the votes count," said Mary Helen Flores, an activist with the Citizens Against Voter Abuse (CAVA) group."The parties are just as much to blame as the elections office for this mess," she said. "These people not only have to determine if the votes kicked out by the voting machines are legitimate, they also have to determine whether to count them. They (as the resolution board) were counting mail-in votes at 1 a.m. election night."
Voters are allowed to cast their ballots provisionally if they show up at ba pollin gplace and have no ide or voter card to show they are registered to vote. The Democrats and Republicans each appoint six members on the ballot and resolution board.
The Democratic Party members of both the ballot and resolution boards are: Maggie Gonzalez, Laura Lee Ortiz, Ida Diaz, Benita Torres, and Leonel Gonzales.
The Republican Party members are: Maria Luisa Tovar, Norma Tovar, Rudy Tovar (all Tovars are related), Winifred Marshal, and Alba Padron.
Other observes said that most of the morning Tuesday, the board members were regaled by Norma Tovar grandstanding before the others, apparently to show that she was on top of the situation.
"This has to change," said a poll watcher. "At this pace, it'll be midnight before we find out which of the three races in question will be decided, if at all."
Three countywide races hinge on the count that the board will eventually have to make before the Tuesday midnight deadline. Those are: The place 7 race for the board of the Brownsville Independent School District between Linda Gill-Martinez and Jose Hector Chirinos which stood at 14,709 for Gill-Martinez and 14,705 for Chirinos; the Constable Pct. 1 contest between incumbent Horacio Zamora with 2,501 and challenger Pedro "Pete" Delgadillo with 2,500; and the Santa Maria ISD Adolfo Hinojosa with 314 votes and Juan Jose Morales with 312.
Since the board had not determined the legitimacy of the provisional votes yet, the votes had not been tallied so there is no telling who they were for.
"It won't be soon that we will know how the voting went, or even how many provisional votes have been accepted or who they were for," said a poll watcher during a break in the afternoon. "This is so much bull---t. This system has to change."
Those close to the resolution board say that the number of provisional votes in this election is suspiciously large. They say that there had never been that many of these votes cast in past elections.
"If only 11 out of the 600 provisional votes cast have been accepted, why on earth did these people show up to vote if they weren't even registered to vote in the county? Why did anyone put these provisional voters up to showing up knowing they were not registered to vote? Did they think that no one would check and they would slip by and be counted? Something is going on here."
8 comments:
Thanks for the report.
Linda Gill Martinez is backed by Yolanda Begum and Democtractic Chair Sylvia. So why is everyone so worried for Linda Gill Martinez????/
Chirinos has alot of baggage. He made alot of bad decisions in his dept can imagine what he'll do with the district.
5:13 Sound like Chillon Chirinos.
waw, waw, waw,,,
You all are a bunch of blithering idiots. At the end of the fiscal year, any budgeted money not spent has to be spent. Departments like transportation buy tires, oil, filters, water pumps, injectors, etc. These are things that wear during the year and have to be replaced. If you don't spend your budget, it gets wacked! So shut the fuck up! You make yourselves look like idiots when people that know how things work, read your bs!
Who appoints this committee and who are they, especially when you have 3 members of the same family as part of the committee. I wonder if Erin, Norma and Ernie will be the next to be appointed to that committee on the next go around. Who are they to determine if a vote is to be counted or not. If you have 600 votes and only 11 are certified, where did all the others come from, who sent them in and why do they not qualify to be counted. This is not the democratic process that I was taught about in school. And we wonder why there is so much apathy when it comes to voting????
The blogger who uses his filty mouth to get on the previous blogger has something to answer. How did he/she know that the first blogger was talking about all the stuff that was stored in a self-store room? Should it not have been at the bus barn? Did he buy all the stuff from you?
The plot thickens!
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