- Hi Jeff,
-
- Here's the latest from South Texas, where it is still
advisable to vote early and often. This election took place last month
and it is still not decided. Mind you, it's not a question of (ahem) fraud
-- they just have to keep counting and recounting the ballots until the
tally comes out right. Multiple times if necessary. And that can take a
few weeks, maybe a month or even more. It depends. Representative Democracy
is complex, and while it might seem a simple thing to count the vote, political
reality can sometimes be more, well, subtle.
-
-
- District 28 Brings Back The Bad Old Days
-
- By Rebeca Rodriguez
- Staff Writer
- San Antonio Express-News
- 4-4-4
-
- LAREDO - It reads like fiction,
the bitter Democratic primary battle in the 28th Congressional District.
-
- But the missing votes, small-town politics, finger-pointing
and soured friendships that have made it one of the more bizarre elections
in Texas's colorful history are all too real.
-
- After almost a month, Laredo lawyer Henry Cuellar has
the most votes, but the winner remains in doubt. And the ballots sit in
six triple-locked blue metal boxes inside a carpeted bank vault in Zapata.
-
- Also in doubt is the political future of Ciro Rodriguez,
a seven-year veteran of Congress who's on the verge of being unseated by
two batches of ballots that mysteriously were not tabulated election night.
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- Though San Antonio's Rodriguez appeared to pocket a victory
by a mere 145 votes out of more than 48,000 cast March 9, the ballots discovered
in Webb and Zapata counties three weeks after the election favor Cuellar.
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- He's a native son of the two border counties that comprise
the southern anchor of the redrawn district.
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- "From the outside, it looks extremely suspect,"
said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University
in Dallas. "This just looks like a 1950s election. You have to look
at this as one that will go down in Texas lore as a stolen election."
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- The battle for the district, anchored by its two largest
communities of Laredo and San Antonio, now is focused on a pending lawsuit
by Rodriguez, who has openly charged fraud in the race.
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- Rodriguez's attorney, Buck Wood of Austin, is mum about
the contents of the suit, saying he wants to dot his "i's" and
cross his "t's" before making a move.
-
- In terms of perception, however, the damage may already
be done.
-
- The voting snags have touched a nerve in South Texas,
where people are all too familiar with stories about questionable campaign
tactics and weird election outcomes.
-
- In 1992, an 18,000-ballot recount in Webb County had
to be held after two voting machines were unplugged during counting. And
in Zapata that same year, there were complaints of non-registered voters
casting ballots.
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- Two years later, candidates in Jim Wells, Webb, Zapata
and Zavala counties sought to overturn primary results after reports of
possible voter fraud.
-
- Now, a film of controversy once again hangs over the
area, raising myriad questions about the hows, whens and whos surrounding
the irregularities.
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- Cuellar's campaign contends the vote increases are sheer
coincidence and evidence of why recounts are critical.
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- "Clearly the recount did work in that you had both
campaigns present through the entire process from beginning to end,"
said T.J. Connolly, a San Antonio-based spokesman for the Cuellar recount
effort.
-
- "There's a lot of speculation and misinformation
out there, but the facts will show that the (election night) votes were
not properly tabulated. There was technical error and human error."
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- Connolly said he looks forward to full disclosure, which
he hopes will shatter what he calls the "myths" surrounding the
race.
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- "People are making comparisons with LBJ's Box 13,
but this is not a similar situation," he said, referring to the 1948
U.S. Senate race won by Lyndon B. Johnson under blatantly corrupt circumstances.
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- But Jillson and others aren't convinced that the Cuellar-Rodriguez
race is all that different.
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- "There is no way on God's green earth that 177 ballots
showed up for Cuellar (in Webb County) and zero for Rodriguez," he
said.
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- The District 28 saga began during the March primary,
in which Rodriguez seemed to narrowly defeat Cuellar.
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- But from the beginning, the results were in question.
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- A faulty optical scan machine in Zapata County misread
hundreds of ballots and delayed election results for hours.
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- Counters were brought in off the street, including high
school students, given an oath and put to work.
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- By noon the next day, Rodriguez had squeaked by with
an uncomfortably narrow margin of 145 votes.
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- Two weeks later and an hour before the deadline, Cuellar
called for a districtwide recount.
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- That's when the real trouble began.
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- Earlier this week, Zapata officials conducting the recount
discovered 304 votes that were not included in the election night results.
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- Nearly 80 percent of those ballots went to Cuellar, giving
him a sudden 20-vote lead over Rodriguez.
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- Cuellar received roughly the same percentage of overall
Zapata votes cast.
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- Hours later, Webb County officials found 177 additional
votes for Cuellar. But the final recount showed 115 more votes counted
than ballots cast.
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- A request by Webb County officials to recount the recount
has been rejected by state party officials, who say the matter is best
handled under oath, in a courtroom.
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- Carlos Blanco Jr., a Laredo activist and former city
employee, said he doesn't believe fraud played a role in the strange ballot
count in Webb County.
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- "It's more incompetence and ineptness," he
said. "People just got lazy" during the counting.
-
- Although he said legal action will likely clear up any
questions, he said a Webb County recount should have taken place today
as originally requested.
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- "I think people would like to know where these votes
came from," he said.
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- Meanwhile, at the brightly lit county clerk's offices,
Zapata leaders are still wading through reams of tally sheets trying to
determine when and how the 304 votes remained uncounted during the chaotic
wee hours of March 10.
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- "It was an all-night thing, and people were tired,
and it could have been a number of things," Zapata County Democratic
Party Chairman Teo Garza said last week. "There's no funny business
going on."
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- The ballots are in a vaultat the International Bank of
Commerce in Zapata.
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- The Rodriguez camp has made hay of the fact that Cuellar
received a $200,000 campaign loan from IBC in Laredo, an implication that
a sweetheart deal may have something to do with the irregularities.
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- But Zapata IBC President Renato Ramirez, who openly supports
Cuellar, said there is no way anyone could have accessed the ballots at
his bank.
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- "There would have to be a massive collusion of people,
officials, and there's no way I would jeopardize my career for some political
race," Ramirez said, standing inside the vault next to the boxes.
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- While the furor over the vote continues in some quarters,
for many Zapata residents, the election night woes take a backseat to life.
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- Larry Coronado oversees the delivery of supplies in the
many oil fields that dot the region. Friday morning, after a 24-hour shift,
he enjoyed a healthy breakfast of pancakes and eggs at Tina's Restaurant
on the southern edge of town before heading home to sleep.
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- "Most people here are focused on everyday stuff,"
Coronado said. "In the oil fields there's a lot of pressure. We're
focused on keeping wells from blowing up."
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- While the counting errors may be fodder for conspiracy
theorists, they are just not something Coronado dwells on.
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- "I think maybe it was just a mistake, nothing funny."
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- rrodriguez@express-news.net
- News Researcher Mike Knoop contributed to this report.
-
- Portions © 2004 KENS 5 and the San Antonio Express-News.
- All Rights Reserved
-
- http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/politics/stories/MYSA04.0
1A.recount_new_0404.236b516e.html
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