Ortiz dismisses voter fraud allegations

BROWNSVILLE - Cameron County commissioners received an earful of allegations Tuesday about voting irregularities during the March 4 primary election.

Poll watcher Argelia Miller claimed several things happened during last week's election. Her accusations included instances of unlocked voting boxes, lost diskettes, questionable volunteers and politiqueras casting votes for the elderly.

"This is voter fraud," Miller told commissioners during Tuesday's Cameron County Commissioners Court meeting. "He (Elections Administrator Roger Ortiz) downplayed it."

Miller sent a letter outlining the allegations to the Texas Secretary of State's Office, the FBI and the state's Ethics Commission and was planning to give a copy to the U.S. Marshals Office, she said.

She also provided a copy of the letter to Ortiz and Commissioners Court.

"This is going to be investigated," Miller said. "People are going to come out (and talk about what occurred)."

Responding to the allegations, Ortiz said he took offense to what was alleged.

"We have gone out of our way to make sure the elections go well," Ortiz said. "I've got nothing to be ashamed of or nothing to hide."

The March 4 primary election drew an estimated 50,000 voters in Cameron County, one of the highest turnouts for a primary election here. The early vote alone was 24,445.

Ortiz acknowledged that there was some "oversight," but said election officials did everything in their power to ensure the election ran well.
Election workers located the missing diskette, which had been placed inside one of the voting boxes with the ballots, he said.

He added that Cameron County was not the only county in the state that had ballots being returned late to the main counting location.

"Saying things that are not fact just offends me,'" Ortiz said.

Another poll watcher, who did not identify herself, said she was disappointed that poll workers at the University of Texas-Texas Southmost College polling precinct were not trained properly and that she was disappointed by the way the caucuses were held.

"That was the biggest mess I have ever seen," she said.

The caucuses were put on by each political party and not the Cameron County Elections and Voter Registration Departments.

County Judge Carlos H. Cascos, said although he was out of town on March 4, he received many telephone calls from the media about the late election results.

"We made national news" regarding the late returns, Cascos said. "These are legitimate concerns that need to be addressed."

Cascos said Ortiz would be given the opportunity to address every complaint alleged in the letter and that the issue would be brought before the county's Elections Commission soon.