ORTIZ OWNS UP TO SNAFU: SAYS BALLOTS WERE PUT IN UNSECURED YELLOW PLASTIC BAGS

By Juan Montoya
After mounting reports of election workers putting completed ballots in unsecured yellow plastic bags and a woman who threatened a Civil Rights action unless she was shown that her disabled son's ballot was counted, Cameron County Elections Administrator Roger Ortiz admitted that the votes were placed there by his workers for an undetermined amount of  time only until malfunctioning scanning machines started working again.
But, until confronted by the woman, Ortiz had failed to disclose that his workers had resorted to using plastic bags to collect the votes. When confronted by more than one voter who saw their votes go into the bags instead of the boxes, he began collecting affidavits from the precinct judge and election workers to verify that those actions took place.
However, just as he said this morning, he could not tell us this morning how many votes cast in the Brownsville Independent School District and the general election were "provisional" and had yet to be counted.
It now appears that for hours on Tuesday, many of the votes cast in Precinct 71 (Perkins Middle School) were not gathered in the traditional secure ballot boxes, but were collected in yellow plastic bags until the malfunctioning scanning machines were fixed.
For a time, they were placed along with other "provisional" ballots of people who showed up at the wrong precinct, had no ID, etc., and left uncounted in red plastic bags which were then taken to the elections office.
According to workers, it wasn't until after 2 p.m. that the scanners were fixed at Perkins and the ballots were again placed in the secure boxes.
As it stands now, there is still an unknown number of provisional ballots that have not been counted yet.
The provisional ballots were placed in red plastic bags in the elections office and will be reviewed by the resolution board which will the decide which can be counted. The county has five working days to tally the provisional ballots as well as the military mail-in votes cast by voters in the armed forces.
Right now, with one of the BISD races hanging in the balance with a four-vote difference, there could be  uncounted ballots that could determine that race, a recount notwithstanding.
In fact, until those "provisional" ballots are counted, no one will know how many votes are in those red bags that have yet to be counted.
Linda Gill Martinez beat Jose Hector Chirinos 14,709 to 14,705 according to the figures provided to the BISD administration and posted on their web site. However, Ortiz said there is no way of knowing what the final tally will be on that race, or on all the other races for that matter.
"The totals will change," Ortiz told the candidates, trustees and BISD administrators who showed up Monday morning to learn about the discrepancies surrounding the election.
However, Ortiz put on a good face when asked by a local broadcaster how the voting went on election day.
"There were small hiccups, like always, there will always will be, but nothing major that you say couldn't be corrected immediately or that we could visit and fix, so I think overall it was a good election," he said.