The Story of a Judge's Voting History; Where's GG's?

I check voting history of candidates. Its usually the first thing I check when someone files for office.

I do that because you never know what you're going to find. Like the former appointed County Commissioner who had never voted in the Precinct she was appointed to represent, or municipal candidates that had Republican voting history, or Dori Fenenbock who has almost nothing but Republican voting history.

Oh yeah, fun story later today about that tie-in, but you'll have to come back later for that.

But this post is not about what I found in Judge Gonzalo "GG" Garcia's voting history.

This post is about what I COULDN'T find in Judge Gonzalo Garcia's voting history.

I couldn't find ANY voting history for GG at all.

Zip.

Zilch.

Nada.

That is extremely unusual for a guy who has been in office a really long time, but maybe not all that unusual considering he's never really had to campaign for the job. Now that he is in a campaign against Judge Monique Velarde for the seat, its going to be interesting to see how his lack of voting history plays out.

I checked every announced candidate or incumbent who's election cycle is up and this is a unique situation because he's the only candidate who fits this scenario this election cycle. Actually, he's the only candidate I've ever seen that fits this scenario and I've been doing this for a decade now.

This all started because the El Paso County Democratic Party also does the same thing now, which I think they probably started in the last mayoral election. So I came across this chart the other night that is posted on the Party website and I thought it was a mistake because its an excel table and not official data.

I just assumed it was an error in the chart and was gonna do the Party a solid and look him up on VAN and send a screenshot of his voting history so they could populate their chart.

That's when things got weird.

Here's a screenshot of a search I did of all the Gonzalo Garcia's in El Paso County. There are a total of 8 people with that name. This is the same search I always do. I start with the name and I verify I have the right person with the address they used to file or the phone number or their age.

Problem is, I can't find any address, phone number, or anything else to verify which is the correct GG. I know its not the guy in Tornillo for sure because, well its Tornillo and everyone knows everyone and I happen to know that Mr. Garcia. I also know the vato from Socorro. But their ages are way off, and I think all the above ages are way off. The closest I think is the gentleman that is 53, but I think that is too young to be the judge.

Nearest I can guess is that because he's a judge, he has had all of his personal information off the internet scrubbed. Judges can have that done and it makes sense, its a potential safety issue. I don't know of any other judge that has done so locally, but I know its something that can be done. I think cops can have it done too.

But the problem is we elect judges and when you run in an all Democratic town, well its impossible to get passed the question of whether or not you've voted Democrat in the past. I can't find anything to show that he has voting history in the Democratic Party.

This is where process gets interesting because the Democratic Party has been involved in legal proceedings in the recent past over whether or not someone should be on the ballot and the Party turned out to be wrong according to the 8th Court of Appeals.

Normally the Party verifies someone is a Democrat and is eligible to run as a Democrat by checking their voting history. Not sure if the issue was raised the last time he ran for office and at the time it was under the late Chairman Maya. It is quite possible this has never been an issue because he's never been in a contested race so no one would go snooping around for a voting history other than nosey bloggers like myself. And frankly, I didn't start checking Loddi Dotti and Everybody until recently myself.

So what happens when someone has no voting history or was previously a Republican? Well they have to sign a document that is basically an Oath of Allegiance. So it looks like GG will have to demonstrate his voting history or take the Oath of Allegiance.

Its not something he can't overcome or something that will prohibit him from being on the ballot. Frankly its a little thing.

But the optics are bad.

Voters will wonder if he is actually a Democrat with no voter history to look at. They will wonder if he every voted for himself, which I assume that he has, but without a voting record, you don't really know for sure.

Actually, why bother voting for yourself if you've never had an opponent. These are questions a reasonable voter will wonder about in the absence of anything that verifies he's got history voting in their Party. I mean of all the information you want to disappear from the internet, why would you want your voting history, as a candidate, to not be accessible?