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THE CHIRINOS-GILL-MARTINEZ AFFAIR: THE BLACK BAG JOB
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By<b> Juan Montoya</b><br />After the 29,709 votes that included mail-in and early walk-in votes were counted on November 6, Linda Gill Martinez was ahead by four votes 14,709 to 14,705.<br />In fact, even after the 608 "provisional" votes â€" and of those only 30 affecting the school board race were accepted by the Ballot Board â€" plus the late mail-in votes from the military that came in a week later on Tuesday, Nov. 14, Gill Martinez was up by two votes.<br />The 10 members of the board and the poll watchers thought they were through.<br />That's when Cameron County Elections Administrator Roger Ortiz told them that they still had to count the votes in the "black bag."<br />"Those votes came from different voting precincts that Roger said were never counted on election day," said a participant in the counting room. "Some were overlooked. Others were put in envelopes. No one knew where they came from."<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia0MNEIJZv4DamulID56qz4EBLE0z6UWu1h0JiiX2ZqeuYTbwUUsZDFqZAzhXyn2L-ND2RSFiqDp7r8axVoI-yhCE1DS4sM4hq9gy_Yfq08B3JbPaIbUKCO1uPXnwXUnJKLS70H2cgFVQ/s1600/black.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia0MNEIJZv4DamulID56qz4EBLE0z6UWu1h0JiiX2ZqeuYTbwUUsZDFqZAzhXyn2L-ND2RSFiqDp7r8axVoI-yhCE1DS4sM4hq9gy_Yfq08B3JbPaIbUKCO1uPXnwXUnJKLS70H2cgFVQ/s400/black.jpg" width="400" /></a>Apparently, these weren't the ballots that were placed in yellow unsecured plastic bags at Perkins when the counting machines malfunctioned. Those were placed in boxes after a time. And they didn't include the ones from Burns Elementary that for some reason or other didn't get placed with the rest of the votes, either.<br />In fact, no one could say where they came from.<br />But it was those 87 votes from nowhere that put Gill-Martinez's opponent Jose Hector Chirinos over the top and four votes ahead of her in the totals.<br />Now, as she contemplates whether to plunk $4,000 to get a hand recount, she is wondering how anyone could possibly isolate those 87 "black bag" votes from the 29,362 others if she does.<br />"Did they just mix those "black bag" votes along with the others?" she asked Thursday. "And if they did, how can we find out which ones they were?"<br />Even if Chirinos takes his position on the board, his will be a suspect victory â€" not that we haven't had our share of suspect winners in Cameron County. If Ortiz was looking to leave a legacy for us to remember his 10-year tenure here, this is a fitting memory to his ineptness, or perhaps guile cloaked in feigned ignorance.<br />There's no need for niceties or facile legalities here. It was a "black bag" job pure and simple.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-8586655874792244973?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-gill-martinez-job-black-bag-affair.html
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