Of the 24 illegal votes that resulted in a new election being ordered in the Minerva M. Pena-Marisa F. Leal race for the Place 6 seat on the Brownsville Independent School District Board of Trustees, 16 were cast using the address for a commercial warehouse near the Brownsville airport, court records show.
Five other votes were cast by voters who received illegal assistance, and the mailing envelopes for three overseas ballots were not properly signed, visiting San Patricio County District Judge Joshua Johnson ruled on Thursday.
Leal initially won the Nov. 3, 2020, election by one vote. Pena asked for a recount and prevailed by eight votes, 16,552 to 16,544 for Leal and 10,575 for Joe A. Rodriguez. The vote was canvased, Pena was declared the winner and was sworn in Dec. 9, 2020, to her fourth term on the board.
Leal sued and the contest went to trial Jan 6-7 in 107th state District Court, with Johnson presiding because under state law the challenge had to be heard by a judge outside the county where the challenged election took place. On Thursday, Johnson ruled the 24 illegal votes made it impossible to determine the election’s true winner and ordered a new election for May 7, with early voting by personal appearance from April 25-May 3.
In a ruling titled “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law” that accompanied Johnson’s order declaring the November 2020 election void and ordering the new election, Johnson found that Leal, through her attorney Gilbert Hinojosa, had shown by clear and convincing evidence that 16 voters cast ballots who were registered to vote at an address other than their residence, a commercial warehouse at 225 S. Vermillion Ave. near the Brownsville-South Padre Island International airport.
In the ruling, Johnson noted that all 16 had received complete general election ballots and that it was impossible or impractical to acertain whether they had actually voted in the BISD election. Determininng whether the 16 actually voted in the BISD election was not required to declare their votes illegal, the ruling stated, citing precedent.
“The clear and convincing evidence submitted by Contestant Leal showed that the Cameron County Election Administrator’s office acepted the Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Requests that were submitted by the 16 voters listed in Paragraph 13. Every one of those requests, plus a number of others, included the 225 S. Vermillion Ave. address, which is a non-residential commercial building,” the ruling states.
It goes on to say that the election administrator’s office compounded the error by sending ballots to the 16 voters, including the Place 6 election. “After these ballots were returned by the illegally registered voters, the Cameron County Ballot Board accepted all of these mail ballots even though they contained the same exact address — a warehouse next to the Brownsville airport,” the ruling states.
Additionally, Johnson ruled that Leal had shown by clear and convincing evidence that four voters received illegal assistannce marking their ballots when they were capable of doing so themselves. The mother of a fifth voter, who is mentally challenged, voted the entire ballot for him, and the ballots for three other voters were improperly signed on the mailing envelope, the ruling states.
Johnson states in the ruling that he used an “under vote” ratio of approximately 6,000 votes among the 40,000 who voted in the election but did not vote in the school board election.
“The evidence shows 15% of voters in this election ‘under voted’ in the school board election. By using this ratio of an 8 vote margin requires approximately ten (10) illegally cast votes to equate to in order to invalidate the election results. The court found 24 ilegally cast votes. This number is more than twice the ‘over vote’ margin favoring the contestee (Pena.) Therefore the Court finds the election should be overturned,” the ruling states.
Pena’s attorney Rick Zayas has said he plans to appeal the ruling.
