8-FOLD INCREASE IN DEMO MAIL-INS TRIGGERED RESPONSE

By Juan Montoya
Remember when the poll watchers at the Cameron County Elections Department raised the alarm over the nearly eight-fold increase in Democratic party mail-in votes during the 2018 primary?

People like Citizens Against Voter Abuse director Mary Helen Flores saw the increase a potential return to the bad old days of vote harvesting by politiqueras held virtually at day care centers.

Others, like poll watchers for candidates that eventually lost – Team Saenz, for example – feared that all their work during the long campaign would be neutralized by bought votes.

Toward that end they posted their concerns on social media and reached out to Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz to step in and determine whether their fears were grounded in reality.

The main concern was the fat that in the 2014 Democratic Party primary there were only 99 votes cast by mail. In this year's primary, there were 892, a nearly eight-fold increase. The republican primary mail-in votes, in contract were actually down from 2014's 414 to 316, 98 mail-in votes less.

As someone else has pointed out, although there was a huge increase in mail-in votes in the Democratic primary, no races were decided by the number in any race.

The crescendo of alarm reached the ears of DA Saenz, whose brother Mario was one of the poll watchers. The mail-in votes were opened and evaluated on the Monday before the election, and – even before the results were published on Tuesday evening – Elections Dept. Director Remi Garza received a directive to provide each and every mail-in ballot to his office to compare the signatures and assert that the votes were legit.

Saenz had a stake in the elections. His Team Saenz made it no secret that they were supporting various candidates in the elections, including a county commissioner, one for county clerk, and at least one or two judges.

Not believing that his candidates had taken a drubbing in the polls, Saenz sent a post on Facebook predicting that certain Democratic candidates would garner the majority of the votes. In particular, he singled out Cameron County Clerk Sylvia Garza Perez and 197th District Court candidate Carlos Masso.

The outcry reached such a crescendo that the Cameron County Elections Commission called a special meeting March 19 to sort of the matter. They brought in Garza and questioned him on the reason for the increase.

During the meeting, Garza said that – unlike 2014 – both the Republican and Democratic state officials had mailed out applications to all of their registered constituents over 65 all across the state encouraging them to request a mail-in ballot for the election. The Republican party actually started this practice before the 104 primaries, and the Democrats followed suit this year, Garza said.

In fact, in the 197th Court race, Masso was edged out by Sonia Herrera in the mail-ins 306 to 247. Adolfo Cordova was just behind Masso with 196. Masso and Adolfo Cordova will face each other in the runoff elections May 22, but not because of the mail-in vote.

In the case of Garza-Perez, Saenz did predict she would get the most mail-in votes in that race with 592 compared to Lai Betancourt's 301. The 291 difference in favor of Garza-Perez was inconsequential since the incumbent had a 1,977-vote advantage in the overall vote.

It's a curious fact, howeverm, that the top mail-in vote getter in local races was none other than County Court-At-Law #1 Arturo McDonald with 681 even though McDonald was running unopposed. Cameron County Judge was next with 645 and Laura Betancourt, Lali Betancourt's sister and incumbent of County Court-At-Law #2 – was next with 616.

It appears that the questions poll watchers asked as they opened the mail-in ballots: "Have politiqueras reappeared four years later to manipulate the vote and potentially skewer the vote in favor of those candidates who paid them harvest the mail-in ballots?"

And "Who will be the candidates who will benefit from the huge increase in mail-in ballots, and did they pay politiqueras for those votes?," may have been with out any basis.

The mail-in votes this year – despite the misgivings of Saenz and his team – really made no difference in the results. After decades of having that bought-and-paid-for vote deciding local races, it appears that the actions of the parties in leaving it up to the voter to apply for a mail-in ballot and the new laws that make it a felony to harvest votes may have stymied that racket.