CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: THE B'VILLE HOLLER

By Juan Montoya
We never thought we'd hear ourselves say this again, but here goes.
The Brownsville Herald's election night coverage this year was outstanding. There we said it.
Not only were the result available online by 11:35 p.m Tuesday (no fault of their own), but the next morning, a full recounting of the election results and totals were in the morning paper.

Yeah, we know that Hidalgo County has a superior electronic election results reporting system and that they were announcing race totals when Chris Davis' Cameron County Elections department had only announced the early vote, but that's a limitation that they have to work with. Until the county commission decides they want to move into the 21st Century, Davis and his staff will have to deal with the hand they've been dealt.
About the only snafus the department had to deal with was the fact that up to one hour before the training session they had to scramble to find polling place election judges and had to settle for a couple of high school students and a handicapped person with a walker to serve. To their credit, this must have been one fo the cleanest elections in recent memory.
Mary Helen Flores' Citizens Against Voter Abuse is also to be credited with putting all adult day care centers in the county on notice that they were under scrutiny by to not allow candidates to haul off their clients like cattle to vote for certain candidates with the promise of a plate of BBQ chicken or tamales. Some of our sources have told us that state and federal agents were seen around the main polling places inquiring of the workers of any hanky-panky at their sites.
Nonetheless, our congrats to election team reporters Ty Johnson, Mark Reagan, Melissa Montoya (no relation)Steve Clark and even Gary Long. The stories were timely, focused on the important races, and they tried to interview all of the principals. One couldn't ask for more.
The newsroom, after all, is the same one where the likes of Bob Rivard, James Pinkerton, Bill Young, Dan McLanahan, David Crowder, Becky Thatcher, and others like Jerry McHale, Emma Perez-Treviño, Patricia Gonzalez, etc., labored over typewriter and later word processors to do exactly what the new guys did.
Congrats!