By Juan Montoya
Well, we have been taken to task.
After we posted that the way election day and early voting polling places were drawn in the Brownsville Navigation District and the Texas Southmost College elections smacked of voter suppression of barrio voters, we have been branded "drunks" "paid hacks," and a number of choice sobriquets alluding to our moral character.
We're hurt. Really.
Since many of our thousands of readers may not have the time to peruse a long post of text, we'll make it easy for them without belaboring the point.
We'll do it with pictures so that they, and our eternal critics, can understand.
We pointed out, for example, that voters accustomed to cast their ballots in Precinct 60 (Morningside Elementary) will now have to go vote at Rivera High School. Morningside Elementary is less than 10 blocks away from Cromack and in the same barrio, but voters there will have to travel about 3 miles to vote in Rivera H.S. at 6955 FM 802. (See graphic)
Since the polling place at Cromack is going to be open on election day, it's not going to add anything to the cost of running the election, is it? And some of our eternal critics say that the polling places that will be only "slightly inconvenienced" are low-voting precincts anyway. People there don't vote, they say.
That reasoning defies logic. It indicates intent to suppress. So, their thinking goes, since they don't vote very much when the polling place is near, let's make them travel three miles instead of nine blocks. In other words, let's make sure they don't vote.
Let's take another example of how these polling places have been drawn to discourage voting in the barrios.
* Precinct 5 voters, accustomed to vote at Victoria Elementary at 2801 E. 13th Street, will have to travel across town and cast their ballots at Gonzalez Elementary at 4350 Jaime Zapata Road (Coffeeport Road), three miles away as the urraca flies. (see graphic)
That despite the fact that Canales Elementary (Pct. 37) is also a polling place less than nine blocks away. And Cromack Elementary (Pct. 10), is also closer, less than a mile and one-quarter away. Why Gonzalez 3 miles away?
Those are but two examples of their reasoning. But they argue, we have always done things this way and no one has complained before.
Take the early voting polling places.
The voting places for the BND/TSC elections do not include Christ the King Church, the Cameron Park Community Building, or the Main Office of the Brownsville Independent School District.
But they do include the Port's new administrative building (Actually, the fire station across the old port administrative building. We stand corrected.), the Cameron County Courthouse, the two city libraries at Central Blvd. and Southmost, TSC, Port Isabel City Hall, and Los Fresnos Community Center.
Christ the King Church, in the heart of Southmost, they say, was replaced by the Public Library "just a few blocks down the road." Well, whoever said that obviously knows very little about distance, since the Southmost Public Library is not "just a few blocks" away from Christ the King, but more like a mile as the chico flies. (See graphic)
The exclusion of these voting places in the heart of Brownsville barrios seems to some to be a decided disadvantage to challenger Cesar Lopez, the president o the BISD board challenging incumbent John Wood. Also, they point out that Javier Vera, a CFO for the Gowen Roser Group, which does extensive business with the port is at an advantage over Esteban Guerra and Patrick Anderson by having a polling place near his offices.
Now, as far as being drunks, we own up to the fact that we like a cold one every once in a while. And as for getting paid to write this, well, we're used to people talking out of their ulcerative colons without providing any proof of the shit they say. They should take their numerous meds to maintain some sort of mental equilibrium.
One of those boasts that he has a degree in Soviet Studies. You remember the Soviet Union, don't you? It disappeared and all that is left is what is now Russia and her invaded countries. With the Soviet Union obsolete, does that make a degree in Soviet Studies equally useless?
As far as what is left of that empire, Russia is where Vladimir Putin keeps getting elected by outlandish margins. Come to think about it, these types of voting schemes may be a part of his campaign strategy to keep on winning, something like the "club" at the Port of Brownsville.
We get it now. It's so depressing we may just have to get a cold brewsky to get over it.
8 comments:
Another reason to allow voters to cast their votes at any voting station. They are doing this in the upper Valley and with computers we should be able to have this system. If during Early Voting we can vote anywhere, then for all elections we should be able to voter where ever is most convenient.
So who is going to be held accountable?
" we have always done things this way, and no one has complained before." I used to say " forty years of tradition unhampered by progress" Sometimes, all it takes is using common sense.
Somebody is going to sue the crap out of these people and who's gonna pay "THE TAXPAYERS".
Just like the million dollars the county paid. Where did that money come from and the culprits are still working.
This one is for Mary Ester Flores, founder of Citizens Against Voter Abuse or Cava. Instead of posturing for promotion against LNG which will bring jobs and posterity to the Valley, try doing something against unjustified voting sites and suppressed voting dynamics. I mean, that is voter abuse isn't it? While your thesis is admirable, your execution is flawed Mary. Stick to your knitting. You know absolutely nothing about LNG other than someone told you it was a way to gain notoriety and that it was bad.
Folks come on, this voter fraud, intimidation, dead people voting has been going on for decades if not centuries, remember the poll tax to keep out people from voting, well guess what we don't have anyone to blame for this ridiculous scheme but the election committee, demofart party who are always trying one way or another to manipulate the votes, just ask the kindpin Gilberto Hinojosa or his jester remi garza.
It looks like the areas that are being obstructed from voting, are located where the Valley Crossing Pipeline is planned to pass through. Check the map. Designed to keep them from voting to protect themselves. To lower participation by heavily Hispanic concentrations of voters, in favor of anglo voters, to help the anglo candidates and the pipeline and LNG. just a theory
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