Grand jury investigating Progreso polling

May 17, 2009 - 7:52 PM
By Jeremy Roebuck
The Monitor

PROGRESO - An Hidalgo County grand jury is investigating whether Progreso Mayor Omar Vela's supporters bought votes and recruited people to impersonate others at the polls during the city's November 2008 municipal elections.

District Attorney Rene Guerra declined to discuss the scope of the inquiry last week but said grand jurors had already uncovered several points of concern.

"I expect this grand jury to return indictments," he said.

News of the probe - which spread quickly through this Mid-Valley community last week - came as a surprise to many residents, who have urged Guerra's office for months to take their claims of voter fraud and election tampering seriously.

By law, grand juries conduct their proceedings in secret. But as sheriff's deputies served subpoenas on several Vela-aligned election workers and poll watchers, reports quickly made their way back to the mayor's opponents.

"It looks like they're finally paying attention to us after all this time," said Marilu Ybarra, a vocal political activist in the anti-Vela camp.

Since at least last year, Vela's critics have alleged that his family has threatened voters' jobs, recruited illegal immigrants to cast ballots and stacked the polls with partisan election workers who interfere with those trying to cast ballots for the opposition.

All these efforts, Ybarra and her cohorts say, are undertaken to maintain the Velas' control over both the city government and the school district - Progreso's two main employers.

In addition to the mayor's seat, members of the city's first family also hold a seat on the City Council and two school district elected offices - including the school board presidency.

The mayor and his family have vehemently denied any wrongdoing and accused their challengers of running their own illegal voting campaign.

While both sides agree corruption continues at Progreso's polls, the city's election problems had garnered little attention until earlier this year, when Ybarra found an unlikely ally in state Republicans in Austin pushing a so-called voter ID bill.

The proposed measure - which would require voters to present photo identification or two other forms of ID before casting a ballot - has drawn heavy criticism from Valley legislators, who claim the bill would suppress turnout among the poor and elderly. Those groups make up the majority of Progreso's voting base.

But after years of fighting off counterarguments from Democrats that voter impersonation was not a proven problem in Texas, Republicans seized on 12 sworn affidavits from Progreso residents who claimed they cast ballots in other people's names during the May 2008 school board election and, in some cases, voted despite the fact that they were illegal immigrants.

The statewide attention prompted an ongoing investigation by the Texas Attorney General's Office into the results of that election. Up until now, however, the Hidalgo County District Attorney's Office had appeared hesitant to get involved.

"Voter fraud is nearly impossible to prove," Guerra told The Monitor in March. "To convince a jury these days, you need to almost have a videotape of someone voting illegally."

The district attorney maintained last week that political pressure had not prompted the latest investigation. Rather, he said, he has been planning on convening a grand jury to look into election irregularities across his jurisdiction for several months now.

"It's slow going," he said. "Some people just don't want to cooperate."

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