Replacing Ortiz In Itself Will Not Bring Clean Elections to Cameron County

County Judge Carlos Cascos
Election Commission Chairman

If outgoing Election Commissioner Roger Ortiz visited with County Judge Carlos Cascos in mid-September about the possibility of retiring to spend more quality time with his family as reported in the Brownsville Herald, the Election Commission may find itself not totally flat-footed in finding an appropriate successor.  The county will have a keen interest in the qualifications and mindset of the new administrator.

Several officials expressed platitudes complimentary of Ortiz on his departure.  Sylvia Garza-Perez, the new Cameron County Democratic Chair said Ortiz "had done a good job."  Frank Morris, the Republican Chair said Ortiz "strove to conduct our elections in a professional manner."  Judge Cascos, perhaps more in tune with the public perception of Ortiz, described his service as "sometimes a rocky road" and "sometimes not as rocky."

The county chairs' gratuitous remarks notwithstanding,  two county elections in the last two years resulted in election fraud cases with dozens of affidavits of fraud, illegalities.  Both cases turned, not on merit, but on technicalities, one brought forward by the Election Administrator himself.  Lost ballots, even entire precincts of lost ballots, multiple inaccurate recounts, affidavits purporting intimidation of poll watchers,  statistical anomalies with several candidates having the same number of mail-in votes, whole residential neighborhoods of harvested mail-in votes were all routinely part of Roger Ortiz' watch.  Recounts were an absolute joke! Simply put, when a recounted vote doesn't agree with the total number of those who voted, someone can't audit worth a shit.

But simply making Roger Ortiz the sole scapegoat does not democratize the process, because a system is in place to perpetuate fraud.  The way election judges and poll workers are selected and trained has to be changed.  Currently, it favors, facilitates manipulation of the election.  The Election Code gives specific limits on the number of mail-in ballot applications a candidate or a non-candidate may pick up.  But the Election Commission allows unlimited reproduction of such applications, easily circumventing the code.  Norma Carrillo, Ortiz' Administrative Assistant, told us that the Republicans submit a smaller version of the state issued application, sometimes handwritten.  What the hell?

The new Election Administrator needs to be proactive with respect the handling of votes of those transported from adult day care, nursing facilities and adult high rises.  He or she must visit before each election with the administrators of these facilities, making them aware of protecting the rights of these voters and the liability issues involved in their transport.  Cameron County has polling places and a mail-in ballot provision for those who cannot make it to the polling place.  There is nothing in between.  We can't allow passenger vans to be turned into miniature polling places as it violates the privacy rights of the voters and facilitates fraud.

Herminia Becerra, "Queen of the Politiqueras"

The new administrator will need to terminate the use of politiqueras to harvest votes.  The currency of this insidious practice was well illustrated by a recent Democratic rally at the Amigoland Event Center where politiqueras were treated like rock stars, sporting the advertising paraphernalia of the candidates and even representing them as a candidate "official" with a laminated I.D. tag.  When one candidate's campaign manager objected to the publication of the picture at the left, I offered use of this blog as a forum for that candidate to clearly state his position on the use of politiqueras.  That offer was never acted on.  Unlike Ortiz, his  replacement will have to deal with this corruption of the electoral process.

Successful prosecution of election fraud occurred last year in counties throughout Texas, just not Cameron.  While Roger Ortiz claims he never observed or received reports of election fraud, the new appointee will have to be more alert, non-delusional.  Education coupled with prosecution is the key to cleansing the election process.  If the newly elected district attorney will not be bothered by reported cases of election fraud the same public pressure that provided the inertia for the Ortiz resignation will haunt the new DA.