ELECTION WORKER RESIGNS IN THE TSC-PORT ELECTION; EARLY VOTER TURNOUT MORE THAN DOUBLE 2012 PACE

By Juan Montoya
An elections worker stationed at the Brownsville Main Central Library voluntarily resigned Monday, April 28, at the beginning of early voting after a report that he was advising voters that they shouldn't cast their ballots for candidate Enrique "Henry" Najera in the Brownsville Navigation District Place 4 contest.
Early voting will conclude Tuesday at seven early voting sites throughout the area. Five polling locations are in Brownsville, with one location each in Port Isabel and Los Fresnos, respectively. Election day is Saturday, May 10.
And so far, early voting turnout indicates that voters are turning out at more than double the number that they did in 2012.
"So far our turnout indicates that we've had a 179 percent increase over 2012," said Chet Lewis, TSC vice president of finance and administration. "Through last Saturday, we've had 1,753 votes in the TSC election and 1,662 in the port election. In 2012 we only had 628 during the early voting period."
According to an eyewitness, the worker at the library apparently told a voter that Najera stood to benefit personally if he won the port election. Najera is running against incumbent Carlos Masso and candidate Joe Wallace Garcia for the position.
The incident was brought to the attention of Chet Lewis and supervisors of the RBM Consultants– the company hired to run the port en TSC election – after a bystander reportedly overheard the worker telling the voter that Najera owned property inside the port and would benefit personally if he was elected.
Lewis and a company representative was said to have intervened and questioned the worker after the bystander complained to his office.
"His version was different," Lewis said. "So we came to an agreement and he decided to resign."
Efforts to get confirmation from Najera were unsuccessful.
However, the worker's claim could not possibly be true because the property inside the Port of Brownsville cannot be sold to individuals, only leased.
However, one of Najera's supporters said that it was fortunate the worker was overheard trying to influence the voter on the first day of early voting instead of later in the voting period.
"Can you imagine if he hadn't been detected and he repeated his lie for the entire early voting period?," he asked.
This year the election is not being conducted by the Cameron County Elections Office but instead by the private company who screened and trained all  the workers. It was the same company that held the elections in 2012.