Posted on 03/31/2004 5:43:59 AM PST by Theodore R.
Cuellar takes lead District 28 recount gets complicated
BY TRICIA CORTEZ Times staff writer
Only in South Texas: the curse of Duval County's infamous Ballot Box 13 episode, which elected Lyndon B. Johnson to the U.S. Senate in 1948, has come to roost in Webb and Zapata counties.
That's how political observers are viewing the startling development in the recount of Democratic primary ballots cast in Webb County and Zapata County in the hotly contested congressional race between Ciro Rodriguez of San Antonio and challenger Henry Cuellar of Laredo.
During a recount of ballots Tuesday morning, Zapata County election officials discovered some 304 previously "missing" votes on Early Voting and mail-in ballots, although the number of ballots remained relatively the same.
That same afternoon, during a recount of ballots in Webb County, an additional 115 ballots were discovered.
More importantly, Cuellar, who was trailing Rodriguez by 150 votes as of Monday night, and who called for a recount in all 11 counties last week, has now surged ahead with a 197-vote lead, according to the Texas Democratic Party.
In Zapata, Cuellar picked up 237 votes during the recount while Rodriguez picked up 67 votes, giving Cuellar a net gain of 170 votes.
In Webb, Cuellar picked up 177 votes during the recount while Rodriguez did not pick up any.
Although Cuellar was losing by 150 votes prior to the Tuesday recounts, the 347 extra votes he picked up in both counties have propelled him to a 197-vote lead.
"If that's true, there is fraud in this election," Texas attorney Buck Wood heatedly said late Tuesday.
"I have been doing this for over 30 years, and I have never seen this before, not in the Dallas area and certainly not in a county that had less than 3,000 votes," the Austin attorney said.
Wood is considered one of the state's leading election law attorneys and will file a lawsuit on behalf of Rodriguez, contesting the latest electoral development. He was present at the Tuesday recount of ballots in Zapata and Webb counties.
"I can't imagine how it happened. Something is seriously amiss," Wood said.
Four more counties are left in the recount, which ends Thursday.
Cuellar, meanwhile, said he "resented" Wood's comment.
"I'm sorry, but the results speak for themselves. This is what recounts are all about. They are to see if the votes have been counted accurately by the machines," Cuellar said.
"I asked for all 11 counties to be recounted manually...Everything was done out on the open, and we always said, 'Wherever we fall, we fall'," Cuellar said.
"When they were ahead, they were gracious. Now, they are behind and they are getting nasty and impugning the reputation of a lot of good people who are recounting the votes and of the border area," he added.
Wood, meanwhile, disagreed.
"You just don't lose 300 something votes," Wood said, of the Zapata recount.
A total of 2,907 votes were tallied in Zapata County on election night (March 9) for the Congressional District 28 race, according to the Texas Secretary of State's Website.
The 304 newfound votes represent a 10.5 percent jump in total votes cast.
Zapata County Democratic Chairman Doroteo Garza said, "Apparently, one of the stacks of ballots, we suspect, wasn't counted."
Garza explained that Zapata County was sent the wrong electronic tally machine for election night. They were then notified by the Texas Secretary of State's office around 11 p.m. to begin a count of the nearly 3,000 ballots by hand.
Zapata election officials, however, kept no record of the "undervote," meaning ballots in which voters choose not to vote in a particular race.
As such, these "no votes" cannot be reconciled in the recount because there is no record of how many "no votes," occurred during this Congressional race, poll watchers said Tuesday.
"That's what makes this so unusual," Washington-based attorney Chris Sautter said.
Sautter, who was present at the Zapata and Webb recounts, will also be involved in the Rodriguez suit.
"It's not that there were more physical ballots (found during the Zapata recount), it's that more "votes" on the existing ballots were found for this race," Sautter said.
In Zapata, Garza repeatedly stressed no tampering of ballot boxes occurred between Election Night (March 9) and the Tuesday recount.
The boxes were sealed and taken to a vault at the Zapata branch of the International Bank of Commerce, as directed by a district judge in the impoundment order, which was issued prior to the election.
"I've been doing this for 20 years, and I have never run across a situation like this where votes just appear. It's highly unusual and inexplicable," Sautter argued.
What is unusual, Sautter continued, is that voting results should be very close when you recount ballots with the original type of method used for counting the ballots on election night.
In this case, election night ballots in Zapata County were counted by hand, and the recount was also conducted manually.
As such, the totals should not vary by much, as demonstrated in the recounts of five other counties that occurred Friday and Monday. In these recounts, Cuellar and Rodriguez picked up only between one and nine votes.
During the recount in Zapata, Rodriguez picked up two votes for Election Day ballots. However, it was the recount of Early Voting and mail-in ballots where Cuellar picked up enough votes to take a lead.
"It's really shocking and surprising to see that kind of change in the Early Voting count. It raises a host of questions," said Jeff Mendelson, Rodriguez's chief-of-staff.
Mendelson was in town to act as a poll watcher in the Webb County recount.
Cuellar, meanwhile, said he remained "cautiously optimistic" about his lead.
"We're not finished with the recount. We still need to wait for all the numbers to come in," Cuellar said in the lobby of the downtown Webb County Administrative Building, where the recount was taking place in a first floor conference room.
As for the 115 extra ballots found in Webb County Tuesday, Democratic Chairman Roberto Balli said all ballots will be recounted on Sunday.
If there is still a discrepancy in the count, it will likely be resolved in the courts.
Balli said the extra ballots could be attributable to one of three factors.
"The first would be fraud. The second could be a failure of the electronic counting machine, or, third, an error in the hand recount. Let me address all three of them," said Balli, who also serves as Webb County's First Assistant District Attorney.
"As to fraud, it seems highly unlikely since these ballots have been impounded, pursuant to court order, and under the custody of the Texas Department of Public Safety since election day," Balli said.
"Further, the ballot boxes had seals with serial numbers on them, and these were available for the inspection of both candidates today (Tuesday) and no one complained of any problem," he said.
Balli argues it is also unlikely there was a failure of the electronic machines (on election night) since they were tested both before and after the election.
That leaves the actual hand recount, Balli said, although both camps had poll watchers observing the recount at every step of the way.
"There still could be human error in the counting by any of the eight teams that were counting," he added. "It's very easy for someone to transpose a number and for others at the same table to overlook the error because they are tired or bored."
The winner of the Democratic recount will face the winner of the Republican run-off election: Francisco "Quico" Canseco of Laredo or James "Jim" F. Hopson of Seguin.
(Staff writer Laurel Almada contributed to this report. Staff writer Tricia Cortez can be reached at 728-2568 or tricia@lmtonline.com.)
03/31/04
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The more I read this, the more convinced that it is due to DEMOCRAT VOTE FRAUD....
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