THIS NOVEMBER WILL BE THE LAST YEAR FOR "LA PALANCA"

By Juan Montoya
After this general election in November, Democrats will no longer count on the notorious "palanca" vote that allowed them to keep most of South Texas in the Democratic party fold.

This summer, after the legislative session, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that will eliminate the straight-ticket voting option starting in 2020.

Straight-ticket voting, the option for voters to check one box to cast a ballot for every candidate from a single political party, is not available in most states, but it accounted for nearly 64 percent of total votes cast in Texas' 10 largest counties in the 2016 general election.

House Bill 25 removed the straight-ticket option from Texas ballots after September 2020.

Cameron County elections Administrator Remi Garza said that the November 2020 general election will no longer have ballots with straight ticket ovals. That means that voters will have to vote on each position and for each candidate instead of casting their vote for all the candidates of a certain party.

"It is my understanding that after 2019 that will be eliminated," Garza said. "Since we don't have a presidential election, maybe constitutional amendments where that doesn't matter, it will go onto effect in the 2020 presidential election."

La palanca refers to the levers of now-antique voting contraptions which were used as late as 1990s in Cameron County. A voter could simply switch the lever of the party he or she wanted – in South Texas, mostly Democrats – and do without voting for specific candidates.

Many Democratic candidates benefited from "La Palanca" votes and the party advocated that a voter "Jale la palanca" when voting. In fact, a longtime county resident who worked in the Cameron County warehouse where the machines were stored remembered that the late Ray Ramon even bought some machines to train his supporters how to vote.

"Ray had them in his house and brought over his ward heelers to show then so they could show their voters how to pull the palanca," said the former employee, now retired. "And many of the party's political signs advocated pulling the palanca instead of pushing for specific candidates."

Cameron County was one of the few South Texas counties where voters shunned the practice by electing Tony Garza, the first county judge since Reconstruction, as county judge in 1988. Garza was reelected despite efforts by local Democrats to push for the straight-party vote.

That independent streak has been evident since, with voters putting Republican (and former Democrat) Carlos Cascos in office three times.

Realizing that the "palanca" vote is now in its dying throes, many local Democrats are urging the voters to use it while they can, including Cameron County Clerk Sylvia Garza Perez.

Gilberto Hinojosa, the former chairman of Cameron County Democratic Party and now chairman of the state party, defended the practice way back in 2002 when he told a reporter:

"And the reason that we are pushing the straight ticket vote this year more than any is that every single candidate on the Democratic Party ticket is much more qualified than any on the Republican ticket," Hinojosa said.

Republicans, on the other hand, are urging voters to cast their vote for the candidate they consider to be the best qualified and liken the "palanca" voters to trained monkeys. (See video at right.)