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MERCEDES — An incumbent commissioner here who lost his reelection bid on May 7 has requested a recount of the ballots.
Mercedes Place 2 Commissioner Leonel Benavidez, who — according to unofficial tallies — lost the election to newcomer Armando Garcia by 128 votes, doesn’t necessarily dispute that he lost. Instead, the one-term commissioner said he requested the recount in order to conduct a “quality check” of the elections system.
“It’s a quality check as elected officials throughout the Valley would agree… it’s good to check on that electoral process, you know, the ballots and how the systems are working,” Benavidez said via phone Wednesday.
“This election may not have been close, but the next election may be for somebody. And I just feel like we have seen some close elections recently in the county positions, as well, and the quality is definitely something that I just felt like needs to be checked,” he added.
Reached for comment Thursday, Garcia said he hadn’t been surprised by Benavidez’s recount request.
“I’m fine with it. No big deal,” Garcia said.
“We prevailed in the first election, and I feel confident that we will prevail in the recount. … I was expecting this from Commissioner Benavidez,” he said.
But Benavidez, who over the past three years has often positioned himself as a firebrand fighting for public accountability and transparency — often to the detriment of the decorum of public meetings — said his request for a recount has not been easy.
Indeed, the commissioner said he was given a bevy of “misinformation” by city officials over the course of four days — from whether he qualified to request the recount in the first place, to how much it would cost, to whether or not he still holds office until the matter is resolved.
“On Thursday I got misinformation. Friday, I got misinformation. And then Monday and Tuesday I got more information that was not correct,” Benavidez said.
“I’ve been having to go to the Secretary of State and the (Hidalgo County) Elections Department for assistance,” he said.
Initially, he was told the cost of the recount — which is borne by the person requesting it — would be about $260. Then city administrators told him it would be $2,400, he said.
Ultimately, that figure was revised down to $1,100, Benavidez said.
Later, City Attorney Martie Garcia Vela sent him a letter stating he didn’t qualify for a recount at all.
“Benavides (sic) does not meet the recount legal prerequisite requirement of a 10% vote difference which in my calculation is at least 74 votes,” Garcia Vela wrote in an undated letter addressed to Mercedes City Secretary Joselynn Castillo.
Bur after both he and city officials conferred with attorneys at the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, the city determined Benavidez did qualify for an electronic recount.
“He was not eligible for the other kind of recount,” Garcia Vela explained Thursday.
“The 10% difference would have had all the polling places counted and this type… he gets to pick which precincts” are audited, the attorney explained.
As a result, Benavidez chose to have the ballots that were cast at the 10 election precincts encompassing the city of Mercedes recounted, as opposed to the more than 40 precincts in all of Hidalgo County.
According to Benavidez, getting the recount request approved has “been a challenge.” But it’s not the only issue that has caused friction in recent days between the outspoken commissioner and city officials.
Benavidez claims officials told him he could no longer sit on the city commission, despite his election not yet being certified.
That posed a problem as the commission was set to hold two special meetings Tuesday evening — the first to swear in Dr. Ruben Saldaña as the newly elected commissioner of Place 4, and the second to address some minor housekeeping matters, including approvals to repair city-owned air conditioning units and discussing hurricane preparedness.
“According to election code, Commissioner Benavidez cannot sit in office at today’s meeting due to the petition for recount,” Garcia Vela texted to city officials, according to copies of the messages reviewed by The Monitor.
When Benavidez disputed the attorney’s declaration, citing a state law which allows him to remain in office until the ballots are certified, she responded, “Your term ended May 13, 2022.”
The law is called a “holdover provision,” and it states that “all officers of this State shall continue to perform the duties of their offices until their successors shall be duly qualified,” according to Article 16, Sec. 17 of the Texas Constitution.
“I literally had to defend my constitutional right to serve,” Benavidez said.
“That was just very appalling. I was taken back. We were in this back and forth. The city manager and the city attorney (were) giving me information that was inconsistent,” he said.
But the city attorney explained the temporary dispute came as a result of the fast pace at which events unfolded in the hours leading up to Tuesday night’s meetings.
“I did have to do some legal work in the sense of whether he’s considered a holdover candidate because the election hasn’t been certified,” Garcia Vela said.
“There were a lot of different elements happening right before the meeting, but we clarified it. Yes, he could stay on. He stayed on. He spoke at open forum,” she said, adding that city officials do not “want to impede or diminish his rights as a candidate.”
For Benavidez, who has often spent the three years of his term in office in various disagreements with his fellow commissioners and the city’s administration, the events of the last week have felt “like one oppressive thing after another,” he said.
It kind of feels like a discouraging thing when you get all this information that doesn’t add up. It’s inconsistent. But I’m just pressing through… a lot of this to get to that check and balance on the ballots,” Benavidez said.
The date of the recount has yet to be set.
