ERIN'S POLITIQUEROS: VOTE EARLY...AND VOTE OFTEN

By Juan Montoya

Like a well-oiled (or shall we say, greased) political machine, the vans hauling the voters in for Erin Hernandez Garcia started rolling in with the van pictured at right making at least six trips to the early voting site at the Cameron County Elections Office.

Vanload after vanload made were driven to the curb to cast their vote. Hernandez-Garcia is in a runoff for JP 2-2 with Yolanda Begum, who garnered some 500 votes more that she did in the first go-round May 29.

Now, after activists with the Citizens Against Voter Abuse (CAVA) have analyzed the applications for mail-in ballots, they have discovered that about 500 applications were handed in for the runoff.

On Tuesday, the driver of the van (the same one pictured here) made numerous trips to deliver the Hernandez walk-in early votes.

When a poll watcher for Begum challenged some of the votes because they lacked identification, a brouhaha erupted and Erin herself made an appearance. Elections administrator Roger Ortiz walked across Harrison Street to soothe her ruffled feathers and spent some time pacifying her before walking back to the office.

How seriously Ortiz is taken by Erin Hernandez, whose father Ernie Hernandez is a county commissioner who oversees his budget is anyone's guess. Ortiz is also married to Elvira, who works for Cameron County District Clerk Aurora De la Garza.

But nonetheless, when a representative of CAVA arrived to collect more information on the mail-in votes that have decided elections in favor of Hernandez in the past, Ortiz made himself circumspect and went into his back office.

In the picture below, the driver of the van was photographed speaking with Erin as her entourage at the corner of the parking lot across from the voting site as cheerleaders headed by politiquera Herminia Becerra shouted out chants against the Begum group across the street.

"I left early because we've already had double the number of the votes in two days that I was supposed to deliver the whole week," Becerra claimed later in a phone call. "We no longer have any need to be there."

On Monday, Ortiz received complaints that Erin had planted herself directly in front of the polling place and was actually approaching each of these voters as they were getting off. Since this was a violation of the election laws due to the proximity to the poll, Roger Ortiz was called and he asked Erin to please remove herself from this particular area.

Now, Erin has sought the support of the voters with  a slogan that she can deliver "Legal Experience You Deserve."

Yet,as her actions at the polls and in the photos above clearly show, skirting the law is more to her forte, as this blog has previously documented.

Meanwhile, at Cameron Park, reports that elections workers were providing curb service to voters who were clearly not incapacitated also generated a complaint from at least two candidates. According to the reports, the workers – and not the voting site elections judge – made the determination to take the ballots to the waiting cars and assisted the voters with their ballots.

Meanwhile, as this was happening, the voters who emerged from the polls were treated to a plate of barbecue chicken from the candidate they allegedly voted for.