How Ernie Hernandez, Jr. Stole An Election~Part III

This lady pictured on the left, Herminia Becerra, picked your Cameron County Commissioner Precinct #2 in 2010. If you voted for Ernie, you merely kept things close. The votes gathered by the politiqueras put him over the top. Herminia is the queen of the politiqueras and damn proud of it. There is a rumor that, after the election, Ernie and Norma Hernandez bought Herminia a nice gold ring with a small diamond. If that's untrue, she should ask for one. In the 2010 precinct 2 commissioner's race, Herminia gathered 110 mail-ins. Norma Hernandez herself procured 43, with Margarita Ozuna bringing in 38.

Of course, these votes were illegal. That's what Ruben Pena was trying to prove with these words describing witnesses who testified about the handling of their mail-in votes:

. . . the vast majority of the individuals who were here today, time after time after time said "Norma Hernandez, Margarita Ozuna, Amadeo Rodriguez, Herminia Becerra came and picked up my ballot." and that vote is void under the Texas Election Code.

When Herminia Becerra brought in 110 mail-in votes, 110, when Norma Hernandez brought in 43, when Margarita Ozuna brought in I believe it was 38 mail-in ballots. . . the Court can make the inference that, based on these records, the ones we've introduced into evidence Your Honor, the ones that hold Herminia Becerra's, Norma Hernandez' and Margarita Ozuna's signature on them for the application, that in fact, those were Ernie Hernandez votes. Those were all cast . . I would venture to say 90 percent were cast illegally"

David Hockema, the attorney of record for Ernie Hernandez, reasoned that, even if these politiqueras were working for Ernie, the likelihood is that the votes they delivered were primarily for the county judge race, because, as everyone knows, that's the race that generates the most interest. Here are Hockema's exact words:

"It's entirely possible, certainly probable, on a lot of people that voted, since there were two elections going on, a run-off for county judge and a run-off for county commissioner, many people will vote in the county judge race and not in the county commission race. There has been no showing of some of these people who allegedly gave their carrier envelope to someone else rather than mailing it themselves--I think there are 18 by our count that they said voted in the county commissioners race"

In other words, Hockema saying that the mail-in votes gathered by the four politiqueras working for Ernie Hernandez may not have actually contained any votes for Ernie at all for county commissioner, but were likely votes cast in the county judge race. While Hockema is not reasoning logically, his conclusions can't be disproven, in the sense that the content of the ballots is legally private.

To the surprise of no one, Judge Delgado agreed with Ernie's attorney, David Hockema:

"Primarily, my concern is the mail-in ballots and the fact that they were not actually mailed by some of the people who voted and were indeed picked up by others, contrary to what I understand is the Election Code.

Now, my reading of the Election Code is that very strict adherence to the requirements of the Election Code should be complied with and thea, in many cases in this situation, the Election Code, in fact, was not.

But to extrapolate from what has occurred here and the fact that the Election Code was not followed in a good number of circumstances would mean that the Court would order a new election and I'm not prepared to do that."


In simple English, Delgado says that although there were many violations of the Election Code in this election, he was not ordering a new election. In this election, the candidate with the most legal votes lost. Herminia Becerra, Norma Hernandez and their accomplices won. They delivered the victory to Brownsville and Cameron County's poster boy for corrupt politics, Ernie Hernandez, Jr.