AT ELECTIONS, CHRIS DAVIS HANDS IN HIS RESIGNATION; THROWS A WRENCH IN THE BROWNTOWN CITY ELECTIONS

By Juan Montoya
On the eve of a change in the guard at the Cameron County judge spot, Elections Administrator Chris Davis has accepted a position in Williamson County.
Williamson County, similarly to Cameron, has a population of 422,679.
We learned that his letter of resignation had been sent to the commissioners court with an effective date of April 10.
With Davis gone and the City of Brownsville under contract with the county to run the elections in May, commissioners are under the gun to hire someone since the elections office will be under the direction of County Clerk Sylvia Garza Perez and County Tax Assessor-Collector Tony Yzaguirre if they don't appoint someone before then.
Already, we hear that staff members at the office are jockeying for a shot at the post even before Davis' letter had reached the county's administration.
Davis was appointed to the office in December 2012 and replaced Roger Ortiz, who had the dubious fame of presiding over the office during the Carlos Cascos-John Wood contest for county judge when a final tally of the votes dragged on for more than a month amid charges of manipulation of the vote.
Before he took office, during the 2012 elections, critics charged that several candidates had abused the system using paid politiqueros and politiqueras to gather fraudulent mail-in votes and harvest votes from adult day-care centers.
There have been at least five of these politiqueros indicted by the Texas Attorney Generals Office and one pleaded guilty in federal court.