Election Manipulation by Serna, Quintanilla, & Lujan Alleged

Chente Quintanilla (Left), Ruben Lujan (Right) handling-out
cash; electronic devices to voters.

Justice of the Peace Rosalie Dominguez filed two lawsuits against Enedina "Nina" Serna, former State Rep Chente Quintanilla and fellow JP Ruben Lujan.

The El Paso Times has a piece on all the details. You can find it here.

Let me tell you something, in my opinion this allegation should surprise no one, especially from this crew of people. And this group of Democrats just handed racist Republicans exactly what they need to justify voter ID laws. I'll explain in a bit.

First, here's some background. Serna comes from one of the more prominent political families in the valley. She lives in Socorro and has been a long-time aid to former State Representative Chente Quintanilla. Even after Quintanilla's departure from the legislature the two have remained close.

The other person mentioned is Justice of the Peace Ruben Lujan. He's another old-school politician that is straight out of the mold of back-slapping valley stereotype. If you want an idea of what that looks like, watch the video below.

And this video is why the allegation made by Judge Dominguez shouldn't come as a surprise. This is video from the classic New Years' Day Pachanga that was a tradition in valley politics for years. Thankfully that tacky and ethically-questionable activity is now dead and gone.

But basically here's what it was. Every year Chente "Por La Gente" Quintanilla would hold the New Years Day event that was theoretically open to the public. It was, but the majority of the invitees were regular voters. For many years it was held at the Mission Valley Ballroom in Socorro. The idea was to have a big spread and offer free food, free booze, and raffle off prizes. The highlight originally was to give away bikes to valley kids. Sure, thats a great cause and a lot of valley kids benefited. I don't know any kid that doesn't love a new bike. It just sure helped if Nana and Tata were regular voters...

Chente would get all the local politicos and invite them to come to the event and bring a bike to donate that could be raffled off to a deserving kid. Who's relatives were regular voters of course. In an election year, he was especially successful at getting lots of bikes for kids because he invited all the elected and all the candidates. They tripped over one another to show the valley voters how generous they all were.

Not a bad idea because most of the people running didn't know where the valley was if their life depended on it. In this particular year, which ended up being the last one by the way, the stakes were especially high because there were dueling pachangas. More on that in a moment.

But perhaps because the stakes were so high or because it was an election year, things got really out of hand. In addition to the bikes that were raffled off, they upped the ante and high-priced electronics and even cold, hard cash was given out to potential voters.



The guy with the microphone that sounds like a low-budget Latin-American game show host is none other than Justice of the Peace Ruben Lujan. Yes you are viewing the video correctly. A sitting judge is handing out cold, hard cash to voters. It was given out in $20 bills. And Lujan was pretty excited about it because he more money was added to the original $20 and in the words of Lujan, "Viente mas. Y viente mas. Ye viente mas!"

I half expected him to turn in to Johnny Canales and say, "Take it away, ju got it".

It was an embarrassing spectacle. For those of us that try to spike voter turnout the right way its frustrating to watch valley politicos patronize good people of limited means. Do you think this kind of shit would be tolerated in any other part of town? Listen to how excited the crowd is for a prize of $20. Its because they are a community of limited resources and every little bit helps. Its sad  when people like Chente and Lujan, who represent those people, are the ones patronizing them.

I only went because I was invited to cover it. I couldn't believe it was happening and I even spoke to a few of the candidates and asked them if they actually thought giving out cash was a good idea.

This kind of shit is why people and candidates who don't live in the valley think that they are ignorant poor people who can be bought off with trinkets, free booze, and a plate of brisket.

Now, back to the reason why this was a particularly over-the-top pachanga. It was a bigger spectacle than normal because two other valley candidates decided they were going to pull the same thing. Willie Gandara, the Commissioner who was running for state rep, and a staffer that was running for his seat on Commissioner's Court, rented the Mission Valley Ballroom from under Chente. They held their own pachanga to give away food, free booze, and bikes.

The Quintanillas were happy about that at all and relatives and staff were dispatched to carry signs that would guide people to Chente's which was held around the corner. The candidates and electeds made the rounds at both events. And to be fair to Willie, his pachanga was no where near the scale of Chente's. It was just keg beer and menudo. Much more humble of an event. But it was an event that was attempting to do exactly what Chente was doing.

Pachangas are just part of the playbook of activities that are done during election season to try to get an edge over an opponent. God forbid the campaigns actually work and go and knock on a door and talk to a voter about issues.

For those of you in the know, you are aware of the fact that there is somewhat of an anomaly in Fabens. Mail-in ballots are always disproportionately higher in the Fabens area than in other parts of the valley.Those of us who have worked campaigns down in the valley know why that is. Its always been something only whispered about but people have always believed that there was some funny business with mail-in ballots. There's an active senior community in Fabens and one particular lady that happens to be very politically involved and frequently paid campaign worker for various candidates. She just so happens to work at a couple of senior centers.

Essentially that is what Judge Dominguez is alleging. And based on the data, I'd say there is certainly something going on, but exactly what that is remains to be seen. In the primary election, when there were even more candidates involved in the race, there were only 24 mail-in ballots for Fabens, Socorro, and Tornillo.

During the run-off that number jumped up to 70. Thats almost triple the amount of the primary. That absolutely defies logic considering less people voted in the run-off but mail-in voters increased to that degree?

Not only no, but hell no do I believe thats legit for one minute.

Serna lives in Socorro. Chente is from Tornillo. You do the math.

Let me be clear, its just an allegation being leveled against Luja, Serna, and Chente at this point and its in the form of a lawsuit. To my knowledge there is no allegation of a crime at this point. I am unable to verify if there is an official investigation into this matter at this point.

But I'll tell you what these allegations against three Democrats do. They justify the move by Republican extremists to push forward with voter ID. If the allegations are ultimately proven, then we can all thank the three of them for making it a reality. Way to go guys. Thanks alot.

On a final note, I do find it interesting that Judge Lujan would be so overt in his opposition to Judge Dominguez. I don't think I've noticed another time when a sitting judge was so concerned with taking out a colleague.

My question is obvious.

Why?