Details on the Rodriguez Recount Lawsuit
By Byron LaMasters
The San Antonio Express-News has the story:
U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez is expected to try to beef up his legal case against Democratic nominee Henry Cuellar today, introducing an amended lawsuit that alleges more than 500 people who voted in the primary here are registered at vacant addresses or at homes where they do not live.
Rodriguez, a seven-year incumbent in Congress, sued Cuellar two weeks ago after losing his re-election bid in a recount following the March 9 primary.
The San Antonio Express-News visited some of the residences in question Monday based on information provided by Rodriguez's attorney, Buck Wood.
In one case, a primary voter with the same name as Cuellar's campaign manager, Colin Strother, is registered as living with Cuellar's parents in central Laredo.
The Cuellars, in an interview with a reporter Monday, said no one named Strother lives there.
Told of the allegation, Cuellar spokesman T.J. Connolly said that when Strother agreed to work on Cuellar's campaign, he was given a salary and the option to live in a rental property at Cuellar's parents' home.
Strother reportedly registered and voted at that address, although he has been living with his wife in another location outside of District 28 as part of her employment compensation. The two have been planning to relocate to the Cuellar residence, but furor over the campaign has kept them from doing so, Connolly said.
"He knew that's where he'd be residing long term," he said.
Strother did not return a phone call Monday.
Two other homes listed in the lawsuit — one littered with trash and with the front door standing off its hinges and another with a posted city application for remodeling — appeared vacant when visited by a reporter. Records show 11 people living and voting at those addresses.
At a fourth address, a resident said he did not know six people who were registered there and voted in the primary.
Texas voter eligibility requirements mandate that a person be a resident of their county at least 30 days before the election.
Rodriguez is pulling out all the stops, but it's probably too little, too late. Rodriguez didn't take Cuellar's campaign seriously until the end, and he made it close enough for the result to be in doubt. Still, there's some important questions that need to be answered and hopefully Rodriguez's lawsuit will help settle that.
Posted by Byron LaMasters at April 27, 2004 04:28 PM
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What is most suspicious about the race is that two precints in Cuellar's strongholds turned up several hundred "missed" votes for Cuellar and NONE for Rodriguez, nada, nil, zilch. Any statisitican would say that, absent malfeasance, this is mathematically impossible. Any random sampling, even in the lowest-performing precints for Rodriguez, would have at least generated ONE vote for Rodriguez.
As a legal matter, I personally think that Rodriguez can carry his burden of proof with expert testimony alone (on the mathematical impossibililty absent malfeasance) without offering direct proof of malfeasance.
In sum, I think the Cuellar people were "bad" cheaters. If they were going to "dig up" some Cuellar votes, they should have "dug up" SOME Rodriguez votes too (although in just the right proportions to win). (Of course, I am being facetious, lest some Right Wing nut thinks I advocate voter fraud.)
I've never felt so angry over an election, never, not even...well, you know. But seriously, the fraud here is just so blatent. Nobody has any doubt that Cuellar pulled an LBJ, it's just a question of proving it. Bexar and Zapata have been ridiculously corrupt counties for decades. And the worst part of it is, Rodriguez is such a good candidate, and Cuellar is a GOP lapdog. Argh. Fucking redistricting.
