THE CHIRINOS-GILL-MARTINEZ AFFAIR: THE BLACK BAG JOB

By Juan Montoya
After the 29,709 votes that included mail-in and early walk-in votes were counted on November 6, Linda Gill Martinez was ahead by four votes 14,709 to 14,705.
In fact, even after the 608 "provisional" votes – and of those only 30 affecting the school board race were accepted by the Ballot Board – plus the late mail-in votes from the military that came in a week later on Tuesday, Nov. 14, Gill Martinez was up by two votes.
The 10 members of the board and the poll watchers thought they were through.
That's when Cameron County Elections Administrator Roger Ortiz told them that they still had to count the votes in the "black bag."
"Those votes came from different voting precincts that Roger said were never counted on election day," said a participant in the counting room. "Some were overlooked. Others were put in envelopes. No one knew where they came from."
Apparently, these weren't the ballots that were placed in yellow unsecured plastic bags at Perkins when the counting machines malfunctioned. Those were placed in boxes after a time. And they didn't include the ones from Burns Elementary that for some reason or other didn't get placed with the rest of the votes, either.
In fact, no one could say where they came from.
But it was those 87 votes from nowhere that put Gill-Martinez's opponent Jose Hector Chirinos over the top and four votes ahead of her in the totals.
Now, as she contemplates whether to plunk $4,000 to get a hand recount, she is wondering how anyone could possibly isolate those 87 "black bag" votes from the 29,362 others if she does.
"Did they just mix those "black bag" votes along with the others?" she asked Thursday. "And if they did, how can we find out which ones they were?"
Even if Chirinos takes his position on the board, his will be a suspect victory – not that we haven't had our share of suspect winners in Cameron County. If Ortiz was looking to leave a legacy for us to remember his 10-year tenure here, this is a fitting memory to his ineptness, or perhaps guile cloaked in feigned ignorance.
There's no need for niceties or facile legalities here. It was a "black bag" job pure and simple.