RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas The Monitor (April 25, 2017) — The Rio Grande City school district is refusing to comply with an order to impound election records from the November school district elections that was signed by a judge last week, according to Starr County Attorney Victor Canales.
The order is part of an investigation of mail-in ballots being conducted by his office. It orders the impoundment of mail-in ballots, applications for mail-in ballots, mail-in ballot carrier envelopes, any statements of address or voter assistance returned with mail-in ballots, or any other documents, forms or lists needed for an investigation.
But Canales said that as of Monday, the school district had not complied with the order.
Upon reaching Elections Administrator Hilda Gonzalez Garza by phone, she said she was not available to talk and would call back at a later time. The call was not returned as of press time.
Canales said his office received affidavits regarding the election a few months ago which prompted the investigation by his office.
“If I receive two affidavits or more I must, I shall, conduct an investigation and that’s basically what we’re doing,” he said.
Canales said he tried communicating with the Texas Rangers and the attorney general’s office to have them conduct the investigation but both declined, stating it was a local matter.
He said some of the allegations in the affidavits were surrounding improper conduct with regard to mail-in ballots but could not go into details.
“There’s a couple of other allegations that were made that we’re also looking into, but election materials don’t have any role in them,” Canales said.
He clarified that the investigation is not related to the civil case currently underway in regard to the same election.
In that case, the candidates who lost the election allege that the elections department knowingly accepted over 200 forged or otherwise illegal mail-in ballots, according to the original complaint.
The criminal investigation will likely stall the civil case because of the impoundment of the election records, which will be accessible only in the presence of the court or a grand jury.
