There doesn’t appear to be a lot of interest in the Brownsville city elections.
As of Tuesday, only 774 people have cast their ballot during the early voting for the local elections out of the 96,476 Brownsville citizens who are registered to vote, according to numbers from the Cameron County Elections Department.
During previous elections, candidates would be seen fundraising, giving out chicken plates in front of the Brownsville Public Library to those who voted, sending mailings and even knocking doors to reach voters, but this years things are calmer. In the general elections of 2019, 2,915 people had cast their ballot in Brownsville by the third day of early voting.
“On the one hand, you can’t really compare it to like general elections in November or the elections where there is more on the ballot, because those two, typically, get a much more higher turnout,” Mark Kaswan, a political science professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, said.
“Municipal elections like this, often do get relatively low turnout, but the turnout this time is really very disappointing. It’s hard to say, on the one hand maybe some of it is because there was just so much excitement around the elections last fall, and maybe people are kind of tired, they are exhausted and they want to kind of not think about elections for a while. It also seems like the candidates are not doing very much, I have received zero mailings, I’ve received absolutely nothing in the mail, from any candidate, which is very unusual.”
Kaswan said while it is important to know that Texas makes it harder for people to vote, it is important to hold politicians accountable and the first step is by voting in the elections.
“The basic message would be that we want to be able to hold our politicians accountable,” he said. “The first step is voting in the elections, it’s the most fundamental part. Again, Texas makes it difficult; it’s hard to get information about the candidates. The State of Texas doesn’t really want people to vote, the State of Texas is really more concerned with making sure that only the right people vote.”
Kaswan said there is a very long level of awareness about what the city commission is doing in Brownsville and most people he knows are very supportive.
“You know, it’s a funny thing, people like complain about their elected officials but then, they don’t vote. That’s a very-long running problem,” he said. “And in my community, and the community that I talk to, generally speaking, there is a very long level of awareness about what the city commission is doing. Most people I know of are fairly supportive of what the city commission is doing.”
This election will have voters decide who will fill the positions of Commissioner At-Large B, Commissioner District 3, Commissioner District 4 and whether there should be term limits for the mayor and commissioners.
