Posted on 03/25/2008 9:02:45 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
As surely as winter rains bring Texas wildflowers in the spring, elections in Jim Wells County sprout complaints of election hanky-panky.
Sixty years after a future president earned the sarcastic nickname "Landslide Lyndon" by edging Coke Stevenson for a U.S. Senate seat with ballots stuffed into the infamous Box 13, the smell of dirty tricks again is in the air.
"Some people in Jim Wells will get indicted," predicted District Attorney Joe Frank Garza, who lost his bid for a fifth term in the 79th District by about 350 votes to Alice lawyer Armando Barrera.
"I'm not going to contest the election. The people spoke. But I have received a lot of complaints about fraud, more than usual," said Garza, who said he sent a letter to Attorney General Greg Abbott voicing his concerns.
"They were very interested, and they requested we put this stuff together and prepare reports," said Garza, adding that he expects to see state investigators in Alice this week.
And he was not alone in his concerns, as county election administrator Pearlie Valadez also called Abbott's office after the March 4 primary.
"My concern was the mail-in ballots," she said.
"There is an investigation. They are looking into things, but there is nothing more I can say," said Valadez, who said she was asked by the attorney general's office not to discuss the probe.
A spokesman for Abbott confirmed Monday that a formal complaint had been received from Garza but declined to comment on reports that state investigators will be arriving in Alice soon.
Garza, who assigned one of his investigators to look into the election complaints, said most of the problems were linked to mail-in ballots.
"There were like 2,300 (mail-in) ballots sent out, but only 1,500 were returned. A lot of people came in to vote and were told they had already voted by mail. So someone else was voting for them," he said.
In addition, he claims there are indications that voters were paid for their vote.
Barrera, who has worked for Garza as a special prosecutor, is not losing any sleep over a state investigation.
"I played by the rules. We didn't do anything wrong," he said, adding that he cautioned his paid and volunteer election workers — known in South Texas as politiqueras (political women) — to avoid potential trouble with mail-in ballots.
"When I hired some of these women, the first thing I told them was, 'I'm running for D.A., and I want these mail-in applications done correctly. I do not want anything illegal,'" he recalled.
Barrera, who does not face a Republican opponent in the November general election, defeated Garza in Brooks County but lost narrowly to him in Jim Wells County.
"His complaint is that there was fraud in the mail-in voting, but that's one area he beat me in Jim Wells," Barrera said.
"I lost Jim Wells on the early voting and mail-in, but I beat him on election day there," he said.
With a rich tradition of election skullduggery in Jim Wells County going back to the ultimate South Texas political patron — George Parr — it is unlikely that the investigation into the latest round of complaints will be the last.
Four years ago, Eric Opiela, a Republican lawyer from Karnes City, lost the District 35 race to Yvonne Gonzalez-Toureilles of Alice by 835 votes out of more than 45,000 cast. Despite Opiela's complaints that more than 1,700 fraudulent ballots were cast in Bee and Jim Wells counties, he ultimately dropped his challenge.
A year earlier, Lorenzo Moncevais, former head of adult probation in Alice, was indicted on two charges of using his office to pressure employees to do political chores. The charges later were dismissed.
Three years before that, the FBI was called in to investigate claims that people were being paid up to $100 to vote for a candidate running for sheriff in Jim Wells County. No charges resulted.
And in 1994, county election officials discovered that 134 mail-in ballots had been sent to two addresses at a low-income apartment in Falfurrias. However, neither renter was among those asking for the ballots. Again, no criminal convictions resulted.
This time, however, the outgoing district attorney says things may end differently.
"I'm not investigating my loss, I just want to make sure this vote fraud ends. It's going to get interesting," Garza said.
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jmaccormack@express-news.net
"Round up the usual suspects!"
Fraud in elections in South Texas???
I’m Shocked!
Politiqueras ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
ping!
Same ol’ same ol’.
Unfortunately, if there wasn’t some election fraud going on down there, that would be news.
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