Nope !
One chip, one vote.
Posted on 05/21/2004 11:27:08 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
DA says office has received 'a lot of complaints'; at least one race will have a recount.
ROBSTOWN - Allegations that the names of dead people have shown up on ballots cast in Saturday's school board election have led to a recount in at least one race and could lead to an investigation into voter fraud.
"Everybody's saying the same thing, 'I see dead people,' " said District Attorney Carlos Valdez.
The district attorney's office has received "a lot of complaints" of fraudulent voting - people filing mail-in ballots sent to homes of people who have died, Valdez said.
He has not had time to check the claims but has been in touch with the school's attorney, John Bell, to verify the claims.
Bell said he didn't have evidence of ballots cast by dead people but that he hasn't been to Robstown to verify the claims. He will be at the official recount, scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Robstown School Administration Building, 800 N. First St.
However, school board incumbent Brien "Buddy" Barrera said the school has proof of a ballot cast by someone who died. Ballots were requested in the name of dead people in two instances, and at least one dead person's ballot was mailed back to the school, he said.
"This was just one that was caught," he said. "There's no telling how many they didn't catch."
Somebody noticed one of the ballots belonged to a dead person.
Barrera lost his Place 2 seat by 11 votes to Oscar Lopez, and Barrera thinks it's odd he won most of the election-day votes but lost after mail-in votes were counted.
He chalks it up to "all these dead people voting."
The school board's Place 2 race had Barrera with 509 votes and Lopez with 520, according to complete, unofficial results. Lopez could not be reached at his work place or at his home.
Place 3 incumbent Noe De Los Santos filed paperwork for a recount of his race, which he lost to Raul Molano, 560 to 342 votes. But that paperwork was inaccurately filed, and school administrators said Thursday he had to fill out the paperwork accurately to receive a recount.
When contacted after school administration offices had closed, De Los Santos said he had taken the steps to ensure a recount.
The school board had scheduled a swearing-in ceremony for new trustees on Tuesday, but only Sonia Vasquez, who won with 649 votes in an unopposed race for Place 1, will be sworn in, Robstown Superintendent Roberto Garcia said.
Incumbents generally stay in office until their replacement is sworn in.
Molano said De Los Santos congratulated him the night of the election, so he's not sure why he wants a recount. He doesn't believe a recount will change the outcome.
"He lost by 218 votes," Molano said.
De Los Santos disagrees and believes the voting machines may not have properly counted people who wrote his name on the ballot.
"My election was as a write-in candidate," De Los Santos said. "And they should have counted the votes manually. They didn't do that."
Contact Matthew Sturdevant at 886-3778 or sturdevantm@caller.com
looks like they took a page from the books of the Chicago elections of years past.
Read Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson to see exactly how the vote fraud game is played in this part of Texas. It appears that the ghosts of Lyndon Johnson, George Parr and Luis Salas still live on. (I wonder if any of them voted this time around.)
Robstown is only 25 miles east of the infamous Box 13 in Alice!
I hope my Aunt Mary didn't vote. She lived in Robstown, TX.
You have no idea how hilarious this quote is.
Texans have always been very patriotic.
This is nothing new. The "Valley" has been notorious for voter fraud since the earliest elections.
With the low level of participation in recent TX elections, it's going to get easier and easier to steal the close elections. Imagine: some in TX love "democracy" so much that they will steal for it!
Would it have anything to do with driving wooden stakes?
Nope !
One chip, one vote.
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