Najeras Loses Recount; Embarrasses Supporters

On Thursday, June 18th, in the final hours of the workday, Lucilla Najera finally did what she should have done days earlier.

She abandoned her recount.

And before anyone starts firing off Facebook comments about what “really happened,” let me save you some time.

I was there. For days.

From morning until evening.

I watched the process unfold in real time.

So if anyone wants to challenge what I’m about to write, that’s fine.

Just make sure you were actually in the room.

First, Let’s Talk About The Recount

An election recount is not exciting. It isn’t dramatic. It isn’t some episode of Law & Order where a surprise witness bursts through the door and changes everything.

It’s tedious.

Painfully tedious.

Mind-numbingly tedious.

You count.

You recount.

You sort.

You resort.

You verify.

You verify again.

After spending several days watching the process, I came away with a new appreciation for the employees in the Elections Department.

Those folks don’t get paid enough to deal with the nonsense that gets dumped on them.

Especially that week.

The Search For Votes That Weren’t There

Najera exercised her right to demand that ballots be sorted by hand. That was her right.

It was also a terrible idea. Instead of electronically sorting ballots, every ballot had to be physically handled multiple times by multiple teams.

Countywide. By party. By precinct. Then by JP precinct.

Again and again and again.

Anyone with common sense could see what was going to happen. Human beings make mistakes.

A ballot gets bundled in the wrong stack. A ballot gets placed in the wrong precinct. A ballot gets mixed into the wrong party. Then everybody has to stop what they’re doing and go hunting for the missing ballot.

And every single time, that’s exactly what happened. Eventually the numbers matched because the ballots were found. Not because there was fraud. Not because there was a conspiracy. Because somebody accidentally put a piece of paper in the wrong stack.

Welcome to humanity.

The Reality Nobody Wanted To Admit

We aren’t living in Florida in 2000. There are no hanging chads. There are no mystery boxes full of votes.

There are no secret truckloads of ballots arriving at midnight, regardless of what Donald Trump or Norma Chavez allege. 

In modern elections, there are very few votes subject to interpretation. Those votes are mail ballots.

And those ballots were examined immediately. There were only a handful where voter intent needed to be determined. After those ballots were reviewed, the result became even clearer.

Dora Oaxaca’s lead increased. The recount wasn’t narrowing the gap.

It was widening it.

That should have been the end of the story.

Instead, it was just the beginning.

The Control Freak Phase

From the very beginning, Najera seemed obsessed with controlling every aspect of the process.

Not following the rules. Controlling the rules. There is a difference.

As the recount progressed and the numbers stubbornly refused to move in her direction, she became increasingly frustrated. Increasingly impatient. Increasingly hostile.

Eventually, we were informed that observers would no longer be allowed to speak to one another and would be restricted in moving around.

There was only one problem. Those rules didn’t exist.

Because I’m physically incapable of pretending authority figures are always right, I respectfully approached El Paso County Democratic Party Chairman Michael Apodaca during the lunch break.

I told him I understood the pressure he was under. I understood the hostility being directed at him.

But nobody gets to invent rules simply because they don’t like the outcome. If I had a question, I was going to ask it. If I wanted to stand up and stretch my legs, I was going to do that too. Because those were not prohibited activities.

And no candidate gets to rewrite election law on the fly.

Rules For Thee, But Not For Me

At one point everyone was required to surrender phones, smart watches and personal belongings before the ballot search continued.

Fair enough. Rules are rules.

Except there was one problem. Everybody had complied.

Everybody except Najera.

Her bag was still sitting next to her. So I pointed out what should have been obvious. If everybody else has to follow the rules, so does the candidate.

That observation was not particularly well received by Najera. Yes, I did it on purpose. Yes, I did it because she was hyper focused on me the entire time and complained to the chairman about me incessantly.

Which was interesting considering that earlier in the week she had reportedly been caught recording conversations in an area where recording devices were prohibited.

Apparently strict compliance with rules becomes very important when somebody else is the one expected to follow them.

The Meltdown

Then came the moment everybody in the room will remember. I asked election workers to repeat a precinct number because I thought I had heard it incorrectly.

Najera saw me speaking and went to the Chairman.

An exchange followed between her and Chairman Apodaca. I couldn’t hear the specifics. What I did see was her gathering her belongings and storming away.

The Chairman repeatedly attempted to stop her. His voice grew louder. 

Then louder. 

Then louder.

Eventually the entire thing became a full-blown shouting match.

The deputies stationed two floors below became concerned enough to check whether everything was okay.

Additional deputies were sent to the area. Think about that. Deputies. During a recount.

Because a sitting Justice of the Peace was having a public meltdown.

It was embarrassing.

And judging by the reactions around the room, I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

Several of her own supporters later apologized to election workers for her behavior.

That tells you everything you need to know.

The Waterworks

Eventually Najera returned. At first I thought she might be experiencing a genuine medical issue. She appeared shaken. She appeared emotional. She appeared overwhelmed.

I even suggested that one of her supporters check on her. Then the tears started. The longer it went on, the more obvious it became that we were watching somebody come to terms with reality.

The recount wasn’t rescuing her campaign.

The recount wasn’t uncovering fraud.

The recount wasn’t revealing some hidden conspiracy.

The recount was confirming exactly what voters had already decided.

She lost.

The Norma Chavez Problem

And this brings us to the person most responsible for this entire fiasco.

Norma Chavez.

The former state representative.

The election denier.

The conspiracy theorist.

The political arsonist who somehow always manages to convince other people to strike the match.

Had Najera accepted reality after the mail ballots increased Oaxaca’s lead, this entire circus would have ended almost immediately. Instead, she followed the Norma Chavez playbook. Question the process. Question the officials. Question the outcome.

Question everything except your own campaign.

Sound familiar?

It should.

It’s the same playbook we’ve watched nationally for years.

The only difference is that this version had a much stronger El Paso accent.

The Classiest Thing She Never Did

Weeks ago, Sammy Carrejo harassed Dora Oaxaca at the polls.

The video went viral. People saw it. The public saw it.

Even Congresswoman Veronica Escobar saw it all the way in DC.

Escobar publicly called on Najera to distance herself from that behavior. That should have been easy. It should have taken five minutes. A simple statement. A simple condemnation.

A simple acknowledgment that political intimidation has no place in elections.

Instead, silence. Najera never said a single word about Carrejo's actions - probably because when it was happening - Najera was not only watching him harass her - she was laughing about it. 

Because admitting your supporters crossed a line would have required something Norma Chavez has never demonstrated much interest in:

Accountability.

The Final Act

Eventually, after days of delays, arguments, accusations, searches and drama, Najera finally called off the recount.

She had several opportunities to simply acknowledge defeat.

She didn’t.

Instead, she delivered a lengthy list of grievances. The counters looked exhausted. The election workers looked exhausted. Everyone looked ready to go home. The election had been decided. The recount had confirmed it.

The only thing left was for Najera to accept it.

One Final Question

There is still an issue hanging over all of this. Najera never filed her final campaign finance report as required by law. The recount required a deposit. Sources in her campaign circle indicate Najera was scrambling to find people willing to finance the effort, like Carlos Aguilar. 

He declined to bankroll it. 

If money is still owed for the recount, it should be paid. Taxpayers should not be left holding the bill for a candidate’s refusal to accept defeat.

And if there is anyone who ought to help cover the cost, perhaps it should be the person who encouraged this exercise in political self-delusion in the first place.

Norma Chavez talked her into this mess. Maybe Norma Chavez should help pay for it.

Because after four days of watching this unfold, one thing became painfully clear:

The recount didn’t reveal a stolen election.

It revealed exactly why Lucilla Najera lost.