Posted on 11/04/2010 11:51:11 PM PDT by SSS Two
BROWNSVILLE — For a short while Thursday, hope was alive for U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz that his stunning District 27 loss could be reversed after a bag of uncounted ballots turned up in Nueces County. Then the votes were counted — all seven in his favor.
Though not enough to make much of a dent in the 799-vote lead his Republican challenger Blake Farenthold has, the Ortiz camp maintains the bag is just one of many voting problems coming to light since Tuesday's election.
Ortiz, who has 28 years in Congress and has never lost an election, has not conceded the loss to Farenthold.
“We're receiving as the days go by more and more reports of irregularities, discrepancies, issues arising at precincts throughout the district,” said Ortiz spokesman Jose Borjon. “Today is a great indication that this race is not over.”
The bag, found by an elections worker at the Nueces County Courthouse, held emergency ballots filled out during a power failure at an early voting location in Robstown, Borjon said. The bag was opened and counted around 4 p.m. Thursday.
Unofficial election results showed the tea party-backed Farenthold capturing a 799-vote lead thanks to strong support in the Coastal Bend.
Ortiz on Wednesday said lawyers were investigating one Corpus Christi-area voting site that stayed open almost an hour late, as well as the power failure.
But Borjon's announcement of the found bag, sent via e-mail about 3:30 p.m., for about an hour had political scientists as well as the Farenthold campaign wondering if this would be another Election Day tale for the annals of South Texas election history.
“This smacks of Box 13 politics,” said Farenthold campaign spokesman Steve Ray, referring to the stuffed box found in Jim Wells County in the days of infamous South Texas political boss George Parr. The votes in the box gave Lyndon B. Johnson a 200-vote advantage in the 1948 primary for U.S. Senate.
“From bags to boxes, this is South Texas politics at its best,” quipped University of Texas-Pan American political scientist Jerry Polinard. “Maybe we need to put a number on the bag?”
Said Cal Jillson, of Southern Methodist University: “Texans have to smile when votes are discovered and rushed forward late in the day when a candidate is down by not many votes. It would be a rare thing in our day for a congressman to rush forward with votes that did him no good.
“This is a serious matter because voters have every right to expect their votes to be counted,” Jillson added. “But there's no reason not to get the entertainment value out of a political situation when it's available.”
according to radio report the dhimicrat gained all of 7 votes from the bag.
http://www.themonitor.com/news/ballots-44218-nueces-county.html
If there is an even probability that any given ballot would show a vote for one of two candidates, the odds would be 64:1 that all 7 ballots in the bag would favor the same candidate.
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