Preliminaries under way in Brownsville ISD recount

LEFT: Brownsville Independent School District (BISD) Board of Trustees Place 2 candidate Victor Caballero campaigns on Election Day Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in Brownsville. RIGHT: Brownsville Independent School District (BISD) Board of Trustees Place 2 candidate Denise Garza campaigns on Election Day Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in Brownsville. (Photos by Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald)

The actual hand recount in Victor Caballero’s BISD Board of Trustees race with Denise Garza likely will get underway in earnest Wednesday afternoon, or as soon as Cameron County elections personnel finish sorting the ballots by precinct for tabulating, elections administrator Remi Garza said Tuesday.

Caballero is contesting his loss to Garza, the Position 2 incumbent, but said if the numbers confirm her win, he will congratulate her on her victory.

“My army of supporters didn’t feel that the results had the clarity that we were out there campaigning on, but we’re going to have some answers here very soon,” Caballero said just before noon outside the jury room at the Cameron County Courthouse, where the recount of the Brownsville Independent School District race is taking place.

Garza received 16,495 votes to 12,106 for Caballero. For Position 4, Frank Ortiz received 16,589 votes to 12,062 for Prisci Roca Tipton, the incumbent. For Position 1, Carlos Elizondo received 13,667 votes to 8,379 for incumbent Drue Brown and 6,828 for Philip T. Cowen.

Caballero, Elizondo and Ortiz ran as a team, yet Ortiz’s margin of victory was roughly equal to Caballero’s margin of loss, leading the candidate and his supporters to question the outcome.

Caballero filed for a recount and paid the $2,100 deposit. Caballero earlier said his supporters had raised about $17,000 of the $25,000 to $30,000 the recount will cost and that he would put up the rest.

If the recount comes out in his favor, he wouldn’t have to pay.

Caballero has 14 representatives present in the jury room observing the proceedings and Garza has nine, the two candidates confirmed.

Although actual counting had not yet started, Garza said her observers were seeing some vote splitting.

“A little of what we’re seeing is people do not vote for slates. That’s what we’re seeing as some of the ballots are turned over as they’re sorting them out,” she said.

“I do have faith that on Election Day everything was the way it’s supposed to be,” she added, saying she looks forward to the final outcome.

Remi Garza said election workers were sorting through the 19,000 ballots that were cast during early voting to make sure all precincts are identified.

“It’s going to be a lengthy process with the 30,000 that were cast overall in that election, but we want to be as thorough and sure of our count as we can be,” he said.

Garza said his office recounted a La Feria ISD race the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and it came out exactly as it did on Election Day.

“We’re confident that the numbers that were reported on election night are going to be repeated, if not exactly, there may be a one- or two-vote difference … but given the spread in this election we’re expecting the winner to be the winner and second place, second place,” he said.