School’s out for Election Day in Weslaco.
Weslaco ISD school board members voted Tuesday to approve a calendar change canceling class for Tuesday, Nov. 8, Election Day, over safety and security concerns sparked by two campus polling places: Central Middle School and Mario Ybarra Elementary School.
Central will replace Stephen F. Austin as a polling place. Ybarra will replace Mary Hoge Middle School.
Unanimously — and fairly emphatically — trustees and the district’s superintendent did not want to switch polling places to Central or Ybarra, but say they were overruled by Hidalgo County.
Trustee Marcos De Los Santos, who was particularly vocal about the concerns, called the decision to make the moves “mind boggling.”
“We all live in the Valley, and we see what happens on polling and election days at polling sites, and sometimes there (are) physical altercations,” he said at a meeting earlier this month. “There’s issues. Politics gets real hot here at some towns in the Valley, especially Hidalgo County.”
De Los Santos said Austin is currently only used by adults, and he saw no reason to introduce hundreds of “unvetted, unsearched, unsecure” voters to Central — which does have kids. Those sites are less than a mile apart. Both Mary Hoge and Ybarra have children on site, but De Los Santos said Mary Hoge is logistically easier to secure and safer.
“And not only that, but Mary Hoge is right across the street from the DPS department,” he said. “The DPS headquarters is right across the street, you got a lot of Border Patrol, you’ve got a lot of officers.”
Those schools are about 2 miles away from each other.
According to the elections department, the decision to make those changes was based on gaps in polling place coverage indicated by census and redistricting information.
“Our main focus was to, of course, abide by the Texas Election Code. We increased in voter population, as well as voter registration,” interim Hidalgo County Elections Administrator Hilda Salinas said Wednesday. “We increased in precincts, in voter precincts, and we needed to make sure that all of the polling locations were strategically placed to reflect all the voter precincts.”
At their meeting earlier this month, Salinas told trustees she appreciated the feedback, but that the point was moot for this election.
“This information is great,” she said. “Coming from you all, the people who know your area, know your schools — providing this feedback, it’s excellent. However, at this time, because of the statutory deadlines that we did need to meet, we cannot make any changes.”
Salinas said there will be a law enforcement presence at both polling places and that her department collaborated with district staff on making the campuses safe for Election Day.
“In meeting with them, I do feel confident that the plan in place will work for Election Day…” she said. “We did take the security measures and we did come up with a plan to make sure that they are put into place, on Election Day only.”
Teachers will be on campus on Nov. 8. Superintendent Dino Coronado said administration considered giving them the day off as well, but they would have had to make it up later.
