DAY CARES PUT ON NOTICE ON ELDERLY VOTER ABUSE

By Juan Montoya
The state adult day-care association has put its members on notice that they should not allow their clients to be hauled away by political operatives (politiqueras) to vote for candidates who pay them to haul the elderly in vans for early and election-day voting.
Local managers of adult day-care centers who are members of the  Adult day Care Association of Texas reported that they have received a letter from their parent association warning them against allowing outside parties to take their clients to vote.
The letter virtually echoes the leaflet delivered by by the Citizens Against Voter Abuse to local adult day-care centers warning the elderly to protect themselves against politiqueras when they approach them to ask for mail-in ballot applications or to the ballot itself.
In the past two rounds of elections (2010 and 2012), the mail-in ballots of the elderly who patronize local day-care centers have decided the outcome of several local political races including county commissioners, constables and justice of the peace.
CAVA's Mary Helen Flores said that she was pleasantly surprised when she and CAVA supporters visited some center and were shown a copy of the letter sent by the association.
"Obviously someone in the state got to them, maybe the Texas Attorney General," she said. "The owners of these centers no know that they bear some liability if they allow politiqueras to take the elderly in vans and take them to vote for their candidates."
Traditionally, southeast Cameron County has seen candidates and their operatives visit adult day-care centers during the election process beginning with politiqueras soliciting the elderly to file an application for a mail-in ballot, and then, when it arrives in the mail, helping them to fill it out for the candidates who pays them. Or,as some elderly have said, the politiqueras simply have them sign the blank ballot and tell them they will mail it for them and save them the expense of the stamp.
In some cases, investigations discovered that some people who were illiterate had filled out the application and voted without knowing who they voted for because a politiquera "helped" them to fill it out. In a case that generated a federal indictment in 2012, a woman voted five times from the address of a one-room apartment for allegedly "disabled" voters.
In fact, some of the politiqueras names appear on some ballots and the voters say they don't know who they are.

In other instances, the politiqueras arrive in a van, announce to the elderly that they will be taking them to vote, load them up in the van and then provide them with a sample ballot to tell them how to vote. In some cases, they are promised a chicken plate in return for them going to vote with them. The "assistant" in the van ends up signing multiple times on the election judge's record.
Some day care center owners and managers, such as those at the Happy Hearts Day Care on Ted Hunt Road in Brownsville, say that they stopped allowing politiqueras to haul away their clients and will not allow anyone from the outside to haul them away from the premises.
"If they ask me if I can take them to vote, I will do so," said a manager there. "But I won't tell them who to vote for. And we are not going to let anyone take them in their vans. We know we're responsible for their safety."
Yet, in past elections, there were reports of some candidates' politiqueras making cash arrangements with some of the providers and low-level supervisors to allow them to haul the elderly to the polls. Flores said that with the state warning ad CAVA's campaign against the practice, future elections such as the March 4 Democratic Party.
"We are going to be very watchful of the efforts to increase the mail-in ballots this year with the new laws that passed in the Texas Legislature," she said. "That's why we're passing out fliers with the information the voters need to protect themselves.
In the bilingual CAVA fliers, there are several main points. They are:
"You have the right to cast your vote in secret and free from intimidation.
Beware ot politiqueros who try to put you in a van on election day and tells you who to vote for in exchange for food or gifts. They are breaking the law.
Please report anyone who threatens you or your home for your vote.
Please report these politiqueros and politiqueras to the FBI at 546-6922.
If you have any questions about where and when you can go and vote please call the Cameron County Elections Office at 544-0809."