Victor Caballero has filed for a hand recount in his race with Denise Garza for Place 2 on the Brownsville Independent School District Board of Trustees.
Caballero filed the petition for the recount and paid the $2,100 deposit Tuesday afternoon.
“We want to know if these numbers are what they are,” Caballero said Thursday morning. He noted that he, Place 4 candidate Frank Ortiz and Carlos Elizondo in Place 1 ran as a team.
“I’m the most popular candidate of the three and yet I wind up on the short end of the stick,” he said,
Garza, the Place 2 incumbent, received 16,495 votes to 12,106 for Caballero. For Place 4, Ortiz received 16,589 votes to 12,062 for Prisci Roca Tipton, the incumbent. For Place 1, Elizondo received 13,667 votes to 8,379 for incumbent Drue Brown and 6,828 for Philip T. Cowen.
“We strongly believe that something’s wrong. Either my name and hers are flipped in the programming and the machine’s reading the ballots backwards. We don’t know. …My supporters and I are just trying to get to the bottom of this. If my opponent has won we will say, hey congratulations, you will serve the next four years. But if the numbers don’t add up we’ve got to look into how in the world did this happen,” Caballero said.
“When I look at it I say there’s absolutely no way that this can be. Even my political consultant told me, ‘this doesn’t add up Victor, you need to ask for a recount,’ and this is where we find ourselves,” Caballero said.
He added, “This has gotten too political. I don’t think that the system is necessarily working for BISD. …All I’m saying right now is let’s get all the ballots counted by hand, and let’s really look at the numbers. I don’t know how things really work within the system, but I can tell you my supporters and I are not satisfied, and bottom line is if they voted for Frank they voted for me. I worked this for a whole year. I know what I did. I even strategized to bring the other two guys on. The numbers don’t add up. Something’s up, in our view.”
Caballero reiterated that he has not accepted campaign contributions from any vendors. “I continue to stand on that and if my outcome is that I lost, then I will tell you something and I will give this young lady the opportunity to serve her four years. If I won, then we’re going to have a strong conversation as to how this could happen.”
Cameron County Elections Administrator Remi Garza said the recount would happen the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and take two to three days to complete.
“We’re hopeful that the information that was reported election night is going to be the same as the recount. We test the machines a number of times to make sure they’re accurately reading the ballots because we use an electronic system. He’s within his rights to make a request. …I’m confident that the machines are accurately reading the ballots and the results will stand.”
Caballero said his supporters have raised about $17,000 of the $25,000 to $30,000 the recount will cost and that he would put up the rest.
BISD confirmed that only Ortiz and Elizondo would be sworn in at the board meeting Thursday afternoon and that Garza would continue to serve until after the recount has been completed.
