Democratic Party rejects request for third Webb recount(TEXAS)

San Antonio Express-News ^ | 04/02/2004 | Rebeca Rodriguez

[SwinneySwitch]

The Texas Democratic Party rejected a request today from Webb County party officials to count for a third time disputed ballots from the 28th Congressional District primary race, saying that the result of the clouded election is best decided in a court of law.

"There is little doubt that something sketchy is going on in Zapata and Webb counties," said Texas Democratic Party Chairman Charles Soechting. "I feel strongly that there ought to be a recount. That recount should occur under the watchful eye of a judge, and any comments about how extra ballots appeared should be made under oath.

"Not having a re-recount on Sunday will allow this to happen even sooner," he said.

Nevertheless, Webb County Democratic Party Chairman Roberto Balli said he was disappointed by the state party's decision.

"I feel like I was the only one with the courage to stand up and say what needed to be done," Balli said.

The action scuttled plans for a Sunday re-recount of votes cast in the border county, one of 11 in the district that recounted ballots this week in an attempt to determine a winner between U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez and Henry Cuellar.

That recount erased a 145-vote lead for Rodriguez after the March 9 primary and put Cuellar, a former Laredo lawmaker and Texas secretary of state, ahead by 203 votes.

The Webb County results, however, raised more questions in the already disputed election because the recount turned up 115 more votes than were cast on election day. All 115 of those votes, plus an additional 62, went to Cuellar.

That scenario, combined with election-day tabulation woes that led Zapata County officials to turn up more votes in a recount there as well, has prompted Rodriguez, the incumbent congressman from San Antonio, to consider legal action.

Rodriguez's attorney, Buck Wood, said he was not shocked by the decision not to hold a re-recount because an examination of the questionable ballots will be the subject of a potential lawsuit anyway.

Wood said that lawsuit will likely be filed early next week.

-----------------------rrodriguez@express-news.net

[SwinneySwitch]

LET EVERY VOTE COUNT!

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[jtminton]

They can't even get their own primary right.

[AuH2ORepublican]

Curioser and curioser . . .

Even if the judge throws out the 115 Cuellar votes that appeared in Webb, Cuellar still wins the primary. As I've written before (see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1108902/posts?page=2#2, and please pay no mind to the fact that I called Henry Cuellar "Bobby"), if Ciro Rodriguez steals the primary, and Laredo native Quico Canseco wins the GOP run-off, we might have a chance of pulling off the upset of the cycle. But since that would still be a longshot, and since Cuellar is much more moderate than the Marxist Rodriguez, I'm rooting for Cuellar to win the primary (plus, if the Rodriguez people really want revenge on Cuellar, maybe they'll vote for the Republican and hand us the seat).

[San Jacinto]

I had a good laugh over this a couple of days ago. The Fort Worth Startlegram had this story as --'Congressman Claims Vote Fraud' and never got around to mentioning it was in the DEMOCRAT primary. They just couldn't bring themselves to say it, I guess.

[Eala]

They can't even get their own primary right.

Or maybe it's practice: "the result of the clouded election is best decided in a court of law."

[Arkinsaw]

LET EVERY VOTE COUNT!

And then some more if necessary.....and then maybe a few more.

[curmudgeonII]

What's this something sketchy he's talking about?
Does he mean that someone is drawing conclusions?

[deport]

They can't even get their own primary right.

---

But they are working on it.... They are just following tradition from 1948 when Landslide Lyndon won the Senatorial seat with Box 13 out of Alice coming in six days late with just enough of a margin to give him the election by 87 votes out of just under a million cast.

[Theodore R.]

People here still revere Lyndon B. Johnson. There's a high school named after him in Laredo, and other public facilities bear the LBJ brand throught South TX. He taught school a year in Cotulla, south of San Antonio. But South Texans have been his biggest supporters. The JFK-LBJ ticket got 91 percent in Webb Co. People are convinced that LBJ was for "the little guy" and stood up for the rights of the afflicted. Nothing will change their minds on that. It's part of their life experience.

[SwinneySwitch]

¿Quién sabe? ¡Los demócratas son tan estúpidos!

[Theodore R.]

Democrats in South TX believe that they are voting for their own pocketbook interests when they stick with the party of their grandfathers. Even those who remain poor think that conditions would be much worse economically for them if Democrats lost! Remember, the PRI lost in Mexico before many Democrats began to lose in the border counties of South TX. Tradition dies very slowly in South TX.

[MegaSilver]

The Texas Democratic Party rejected a request today from Webb County party officials to count for a third time disputed ballots from the 28th Congressional District primary race, saying that the result of the clouded election is best decided in a court of law.

The same people that [falsely] blame the courts for "appointing" our 43rd president.

[Chairman Fred]

No, no, that's Miguel Cuellar, pitcher for the Houston Astros/Baltimore Orioles, mid 1960's through early 1970's. A man worth voting for, if only for his curve ball.