COUNTY ELECTIONS STARTS PENA-LEAL RECOUNT TODAY

 Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Some 23 sorters will start separating early vote and election-day ballots in the recount today for Place 6 of the board of the Brownsville Independent School District that resulted in a one-vote victory for challenger Marisa Leal over 12-year incumbent  Minerva  Peña.

Elections administrator Remi Garza said that the 20 off workers who will begin sorting the ballots today will undergo COVID-19 testing given the fact that they will be spending the entre day together in a closed area. Other measures such as wearing face masks and use of sanitizer will be enforced, he said.

After we do the sorting today, it will probably be Thursday that we will actually start the processing and recount," he said.

The count will use an additional 30 workers to ascertain the voting, making ti some 53 workers total and elections may add others if necessary.

Peña filed the petition for a recount of the race she lost to Leal by one vote and submitted her deposit Friday for $3,700, $100 each for each of the polling places and $100 for early voting.

But that doesn't cover all the costs to th department, they said. If she loses the recount, she is on the hook for the difference between $48,000 estimate and the $3,800, a $44,300 gamble.

Of the 43,639 votes cast in the three-person race 27,105 voters (66.11 percent) did not want her to remain in office and voted for new blood (Leal) over Peña and BISD board barnacle Joe Rodriguez.

Peña was named during the Dr. Sylvia Atkinson bribery and conspiracy trial in federal court where the former BISD board member indicated Peña had asked and received $2,000 of a $10,000 bribe to push forward a purported film project. 

In a social media post, Cornejo-Lopez denied she had offered Atkinson $5,000 for a favorable vote by the board on a lawsuit she filed on behalf of her daughter in federal court. In her testimony, Arkinon said the district judge had offered her $5,000 and another for trustee Laura perez-Reyes. Cornejo-Lopez said on her post that it was Atkinson who had asked for $5,000 for her campaign and another $5,000 for board chair Minerva Pena.

Atkinson said she made the initial $2,000 donation to Miles of Hope on Peña's behalf. At the time she was the public relations director for the Christian-based organization. Atkinson said also said she made a similar $2,000 donation on behalf of board member Phil Cowen, who lost his reelection bid.

 

Garza said that the candidates will have poll watchers representing them for the recount when the counting starts tomorrow.

"The $48,000 is still the estimate for the recount. It'll depend on the amount of work it takes for that to change."

 Peña, who has been on the BISD board for the past 12 years, the last two as chair, was in a three-person race with Leal and Rodriguez.

Leal had won by 10 votes at election day, but there were still some ballots uncounted. Peña whittled down her election day deficit by nine after a complete count of provisional, late mail-in and overseas military ballots was completed Tuesday afternoon.