05/08/2014
Primary elections in Mission are heated; both city and school district seats are on the ballot.
“I have records going back the last 10 elections,” Mission resident Ciro Ochoa Jr. said.
Ochoa keeps track of votes in Mission each election.
Once a Mission CISD school board trustee himself he now helps others campaign.
This time around a jump in the unofficial number of mail-in ballots from Mission caught his eye.
"We just could not understand how all the sudden they could have gotten 800 mail in ballots,” he said.
With early voting over the number has since been adjusted to 447 mail-in ballots for Mission CISD and
437 for the City of Mission.
But even with the adjustment the numbers are still high.
A total of 12 entities are having elections.
County-wide there were 361 mail-in votes if you subtract Mission mail-in ballots.
"I don’t have a problem with people voting by mail but I do have a problem when they take advantage of an elderly person," Ochoa said.
Ochoa believes politiqueras, or campaign workers, are to blame.
Recently in Donna, politiqueras were been indicted for buying vote.
Now Ochoa believes politiqueras target the elderly who can automatically get a mail-in ballot for each election.
"This person told us the politiquera that went to visit her basically said just sign here we will take care of everything and she didn’t even get to vote," Ochoa said.
County election administrators said they cannot confirm this allegation or say why the number of mail-in ballots are high in the City of Mission.
Ochoa said he plans to investigate.
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