COMMISSIONERS EJECT DAVIS AS COUNTER FOR NOV. 4 VOTE

By Juan Montoya
The Cameron County Commissioners Court called for a special emergency meeting at 5:30 p.m today to replace county elections administrator Chris Davis as the counting supervisor of the ballots in the November 4 General Election because his father-in-law Joe Rodriguez is a candidate in that nonpartisan Brownsville Independent School District board of trustees election.
The most likely candidate to replace Davis as overseer of the count – according to county sources – is Norma Carrillo, Davis's assistant in charge of mail-in ballots. Carrillo was also the assistant of former elections administrator Roger Ortiz.
Commissioners, in fact, did appoint Carrillo as central counting station manger and central accumulation manager for tomorrow's election.
The notice for the emergency meeting was posted at 4:23 p.m. Monday and had only one item for commissioners' consideration.
1. To appoint a central counting station manager and a central accumulation manager for the general election for 2014
Why the commissioners court waited until a little over half an hour before closing time is unknown.
Former elections administrator Ortiz was overheard telling some people on the early voting ballot board who have been certifying mail-in ballots since 10 a.m. today that the county should appoint two different individuals because of the appearance of conflict of interest.
Davis told the commissioners that he has been trying to licit an answer to the potential for conflict of interest from the Texas Secretary of State without success for some two weeks. Although he will remain as the director of the election process, commissioners directed that he take no part in any activity which will render any vote uncountable or in the actual count of votes whether manually or using the county's scanners.
Other candidates in the BISD board races have also complained to the county Texas Secretary of State to question Davis' role in the county process of counting the ballots in a race where his father-in-law is a candidate.
The members of the early voting ballot board are:
Maggie Gonzalez (President, Democrat)
P. J. Bob Peperschal (Alternate, Republican)

(Democrat members)
Laura Lee Ortiz
Benita Torres
Maria L. Garcia
Norma Garcia

(Republican members)
Sharon Batterson
Wnfried Marshal
Arnoldo Cuevas
(Absent) Deborah Sloss
During the day, the early voting board members and the poll watchers for the candidates reviewed the mail-in ballots and compared them with the voter rolls. They then compared the voter signatures on the carrier envelopes with their applications to make sure they were signed by the same person.
If everything seems to be on the up and up, the ballots are then stacked by precinct and held until they are counted tomorrow before the early vote.
In case there are questionable mail-in ballots detected, a resolution board composed of basically the same people will decide if they can be counted.
This year there are several write-in candidates and it is expected that the count will take even longer than it took to count the votes in the runoff election.