WILL 1 1/2 PEOPLE IN THE LIFEBOAT DECIDE ELECTIONS?

By Juan Montoya
We were in a local restaurant late last week when one of us – a candidate for countywide office – asked our waiter if he had voted in this year's primary elections.
The waiter, a young guy, said "no," that he never voted.
It was obvious that he didn't think that the people at the table, several former public officials and myself really cared one way or the other.
This led me to tell him the Parable of the Lifeboat. It goes something like this.
There are 10 people on a lifeboat. There isn't going to be enough water or food to go around, and someone must decide who gets what. They take a vote, and of the 10 people only 1 and one-half vote. The one who gets the vote, plus the half, decides who gets what: water, food, shelter, clothing, etc., The 1 and one-half vote might even decide who gets to stay on the boat or get tossed out!
As my Newyoriquan friends from the East Coast used to say:  Vota o te votan!
The voting turnout in Cameron County has always been dismal. If we get 15 percent turnout of the 140,000-odd registered voters who live here, it is about par for the course. The one and one-half votes will decide who gets what. In fact, in countywide races, those 15,000 voters will decide what happens to the 400,000 people in the county.
I have a friend who was campaigning at Stell Elementary this morning in the drizzle and cold and he said that as of 2 p.m. 19 people had cast a vote there. At Sharp Elementary it was 19 votes. Even at Burns Elementary, the total was 29.
These are dismal numbers. By comparison, at the San Benito precincts where school board and constable and justice of the peace races are being held, there has been a significant turnout for the local races which will likely influence the outcome of the countywide judicial and other races.
About the only silver lining in the mix is the fact that as about 1 p.m. today, almost 300 mail-in ballots had come in to the Cameron County elections Office. Those, according to Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos – the Republican standard bearer – are a constant in county races.
But the surprising number is that less than 100 mail-in votes had been received for the Democratic primary candidates. Taking into consideration that in the 2012 primary some candidates had almost 200 mail-in votes each, this signifies a huge drop in these ballots.
In fact, of the 99 mail-in votes that were received, four were thrown out for a number of reasons.
These were the mail-in votes that have traditionally been collected by politiqueras on behalf of  paying candidares. The recent indictments of two politiqueras and the announcement that a joint state and federal task force had been set up to monitor the elections might have put a crimp into the fraudulent mail-in vote.
"This might be the first time we get a straight election," said a local pollster. "Usually, the mail-in votes skewer the results of the polling. It would be nice to get some legitimate results."
Depending on the turnout and the early vote – the latter holding about the same as in 2012 – a surge in the election-day vote today might neutralize any hanky-panky that some candidates may try to cheat their way to victory.
Will you be one of the eight and one-half people on the vote who is going to allow the other one and one-half to decide what happens to you, your property, your taxes, your job, and your community while you sit there wallowing in apathy and don't vote?