ELECTIONS BOARD RECOMMENDS EVENTS CENTER EARLY VOTING; ADMINISTRATOR GARZA CITES SCHEDULING PROBLEMS

 

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

The Cameron County Board of Elections – despite the elections department director Remi Garza's protests – has decided to recommend that the county commissioners court  try to use the Brownsville Events Center as an early voting site this March.

The board met Monday, a day when city offices were closed. Their recommendation will be presented to the commissioner court Tuesday.

Garza had written a letter to the court saying that scheduling conflicts would make it necessary to scratch the site from the list of early voting places for the primary elections this March. Garza said that the Santa Maria voting site was also recommended, but that there were days that the Brownsville Events Center may be booked during the early voting period. 

Despite that, the board directed Garza to see whether early voting could be used.    

"The board decided to recommend that the county include the events center if the dates we're looking for and the the city agrees with our request to make it available," said Cameron Count Tax Assessor-Collector Tony Yzaguirre, one of the members of the board."

The recommendation of the board will be made to the court commissioners that they place the center – the second busiest early voting site in the county – back on the list. That recommendation was supported by both the Democrat and Republican party chairs, Jared Hockema and Morgan Graham, respectively.

"If we are able to reach out to the city and those organizations to see if we can work around them, we will reach out to them," Garza told the board. "If you decide to use it, we will try it."

Recent early voting turnouts on November 2020 and May 2021, show that the events center is only second to the Main Brownsville Public Library. For example, in the May 2021 early voting, the 346 votes there were second only to the main library's 1,991.

And in the November 2020 early voting, it drew more than half (8,837) of what the main library did (15,283).

An added attraction to the events center was the availability of "drive-through" voting that is only available there and at the main library.

Some commissioners said that the availability of funding from COVID funds that was available last year is not available now, and that the money sent by Arnold Schwarzenegger to open more sites and encourage voting had been depleted. They also said the city may have already rented the center for private gatherings.

"We're talking about some $40,000 to $50,000," said Pct. 1 Commissioner Sofia Benavides. "The center has not been ruled out yet, but we're looking for funding and scheduling to see what can be done,"

Pct 2 commissioner Jorey Lopez said that GOP-sponsored legislation was making it more difficult to establish sites, or even to move them around. He said some legislation that will affect 2022 elections includes so-called mobile sites.

"Once we establish a voting site, we can't open one somewhere else," he said. "That site has to stay open all the time at the same place," he said. "We aren't allowed to move it."

City Commissioner Roy de los Santos was among some elected officials who lobbied the board to place the center back on the list. The motion to recommend was made by Cameron County Clerk Sylvia Garza-Perez.

"If we can get the city to agree, we can get include the events center on the list of early voting sites," Yzaguirre said. "That will be our recommendation to the commissioners court."