Posted on 07/02/2005 8:23:09 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
McALLEN — A group of McAllen residents sent a petition to Gov. Rick Perry this week requesting state involvement in a pending investigation of the recent city elections.
The move follows weeks of complaints that politiqueras, or paid political operatives, defrauded elderly residents of their votes in the May 7 city elections.
Chris Ardis, one of about 15 people who circulated the petition, said she and the others collected 211 signatures. Ardis writes a weekly column for The Monitor but is not employed by the newspaper.
The petition reads as follows:
"We, the undersigned residents of McAllen, Texas, request that authority be granted to the Texas Attorney General to convene a grand jury regarding the use of politiqueros/politiqueras in the recent McAllen city elections.
"We are requesting that the Texas Attorney General take over this matter to ensure an unbiased grand jury investigation. We must protect the votes of all of our citizens and make certain the elderly and disabled in McAllen are not taken advantage of."
Ardis said the petition was prompted in part by Hidalgo Co. District Attorney Rene Guerra, who said in a June 25 Monitor story that he does not speak to Sgt. Israel Pacheco, the Texas Ranger who recently concluded an investigation of criminal activity involving absentee voting.
"The Texas Ranger obviously has worked on this case," Ardis said. "And it’s very important that when there’s a grand jury, all of the evidence available is presented to the grand jury, because there have been some recent cases that a lot of citizens feel that that has not happened."
Guerra could not be reached for comment Friday but said last month that a grand jury would begin an investigation by early July. His secretary said Friday that he is "officially on vacation" and is not expected to return to work until July 14.
Pacheco also could not be reached for comment Friday. Guerra said last month that his decision to handle the grand jury himself "has nothing to do with whether (the Attorney General’s Office) would do a good job or not.
"I don’t need them," he said. "The AG was the last agency that I was going to ask to come over and help, because I’ve asked them before and they turned me down."
Guerra said his bad experiences with the Attorney General’s Office — which is responsible for defending district attorneys in federal court actions under certain circumstances — convinced him not to let the Attorney General’s Office "pick and choose when they come and for what reasons they come."
The governor’s press office did not return a message Friday seeking comment on the petition.
Ardis said the petition began June 26 with the goal of getting 100 signatures. It was sent to the governor Wednesday and reached his office on Thursday, she said.
"The reason we were in a time crunch is because supposedly a grand jury on this case is going to be convened next week, and we wanted the governor to hopefully be able to get involved before that happened."
The Attorney General’s office has concurrent jurisdiction with the local district attorney only on criminal matters, said Tom Kelley, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office.
Kelley said the attorney general has convened grand juries for Election Code violations.
"But when there are allegations that trigger the Penal Code, we do not have jurisdiction," he said. "The DA can request our assistance, but we don’t have direct jurisdiction."
Julian Quintanilla, 29, of McAllen, was among those who signed the petition to the governor.
"What I hope would come out of it is an investigation of the voting process," he said. "It didn’t seem right that one candidate would get so many votes off of the mail-in ballot."
McAllen attorney Ric Godinez lost to Richard Cortez in the June 18 runoff for mayor but received 678 mail-in votes, or 83 percent of the 818 mail-in ballots. In the May 7 general election, Godinez received 750 mail-in votes, or 81 percent of the 927 mail-in ballots, in a five-way race in which each of the top three vote-getters received more than 25 percent of the overall vote.
Quintanilla said he’s "not too optimistic" the petition will have significant impact on state officials.
"In my opinion, it’s going to be pretty difficult to be able to find out if anything was handled inappropriately," he said. "I would think it’s difficult to catch somebody doing something unethical."
Vivian Tamez, 36, of McAllen, also signed the petition.
"I just don’t want our citizens to be taken advantage of, and I think that when there’s money involved, people are eventually going to be taking advantage of people that don’t really know what’s going on," Tamez said. "I don’t think money should be involved. I think if it’s your civic duty to vote, why should you force somebody to vote the way you want them to?"
Tamez said she’s fed up with the abuse of the electoral process here.
"It really needs to stop, because there’s so much corruption. There’s so much voter fraud, so much crap, I’m sorry to say, going on down here."
She wants an "outsider" to oversee the investigation, instead of Guerra, in order to break through the acquiescence that has greeted allegations in past election.
"If you have a certain amount of evidence, that I’ve been told that he has, I’m hoping that he would then give all of that evidence to the grand jury, so that they can study it and get a decision from all that. I just don’t know if he will. …
"I just don’t think he’s the one for the job."
Meanwhile, some McAllen residents are concerned that the ballots may be destroyed before a grand jury every gets a chance to examine them.
State law requires that the election records be preserved for 60 days after the election day.
After the 60 days, the records may be destroyed or otherwise disposed of unless the records pertain to a pending election contest, a criminal investigation or a proceeding in connection with an election. In that case, the records must be preserved until the contest, investigation, or proceeding is completed and the judgment, if any, becomes final.
"We are working to try to make sure that the ballots are not destroyed," said Nedra Kinerk, 73, of Futuro McAllen. "If they are, I think that that could be critical. …
"I think it’s important that Mr. Guerra try to find out what did happen, what is happening, and make sure that if there are any illegalities, any irregularities, any fraudulent voting, that we start correcting it before the county elections in the fall."
Marc B. Geller covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4445.
You said it, Vivian!
Isn't Lloyd Doggett the rep of this town?
Most likly a case where people come to this country for a better life but bring there old ways with them.
Doggett has the SW part of the county, but Ruben Hinojosa has most of the county and has a district office in McAllen.
Politiqueras Ping!
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off this South Texas/Mexico ping list.
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