If Not Now, When? Another Opportunity to Clean Up Our Elections

Someday Cameron County will have fair, clean elections.  Politiqueras will be a mere historical anecdote like moonshiners and full-service gas pumps.  

Strict guidelines will protect the elderly, disabled and mentally challenged from being victimized by the unscrupulous. 

The opportunity to initiate the cleansing process was there in 2010 when Ernie Hernandez, Jr. stole an election from us.  Democratic Party operatives sabotaged, undermined and thwarted the trial that could have been a springboard to an honest electoral process.  

The party handpicked a judge, Rudy Delgado, with ties to the slimy Gilbert Hinojosa and a handful of his own legal problems.  Then, during a break in the trial, Ernie Hernandez sympathizer Sylvia Garza-Perez, it is alleged, sent home the critically needed voters waiting to testify about their stolen votes.  Delgado stated in his ruling that, while he believed those who had testified, the sheer numbers were not enough to overturn the election.  Of course!  The needed witnesses had been sent home!  A missed opportunity to right the Cameron County electoral ship!

Roger Ortiz

In November of 2010 Roger Ortiz supervised a disastrous back-and-forth of election results in the Cascos-Woods county judge race.  Missed ballots, a forgotten precinct and political pressure all factored into the fiasco.  For those wanting reform to the process, the ray of light was that Ortiz' performance as Election Administrator would be up for review in the spring of 2011.  

In a March 2011 meeting of the Election Commission, Roger Ortiz apologized for his mishandling of the county judge election.  Now-elected County Judge Carlos Cascos gave Ortiz this admonition:  "You have already implemented some procedures to avoid problems,” Cascos said. “After the elections in May, give us an opportunity to see if these procedures that were made are working or worked. If they don’t you’ve got a problem Roger.”  Carlos and Roger also agreed with Cascos' suggestion of hiring an outside CPA to monitor the count.  Eventually, the Election Commission gave Roger Ortiz a vote of confidence, proving that, as a group, they care not one wit about fair elections or even the effect of perceived rigged elections on voter apathy and turnout.  

"Naught times naught is naught."

Of course, both Roger and Carlos missed the point of the Pena-Hernandez trial and the real underlying problems of the Cameron County election process.  It's never been about the middle school Jethro Bodine cypherin', but tainted votes garnered by illegal means.  Bringing a CPA in to check the arithmetic is simply a smokescreen, masking the real problems.  The same could be said for Ortiz' recent call in this past election for an investigator to "check the count."

In a way, the politiqueras displayed more savvy than the Election Commission.  After the 2010 Pena-Hernandez trial, they anticipated more attention would be given to mail-in votes and switched their emphasis to transporting nursing home and adult day care residents to the polls.  The obvious infiltration of Ernie Hernandez-connected personnel in key positions within the system as election judges and assistants facilitated the fraud.  Poll watchers were rendered impotent by election judges who interfered, not only with their observation of the election, but silenced their objections to obvious abuses.  

Carlos Cascos

So, will the results of this opportunity to combat election fraud differ from 2010 or 2011?  It has been pointed out that judges may not want to undue the very system by which they themselves were elected.  Certainly, Roger Ortiz has no interest in facilitating or expediting an investigation that includes his department.  No one on the Election Commission has spoken out on the reported abuses in this last election.  

Some things may be different.  The alleged abuses reported this time are systemic, coordinated.  Potential witnesses are not fearful victims, but strong-minded community leaders, not easily turned around on the witness stand.    An objective judge would help, but that's not guaranteed any more than an objective election administrator or progressive election commission.