in Houston, Texas

Did a woman who died in the winter cast a vote in the spring?

It's a life-or-death mystery, but some elected officials and candidates in southern Dallas say someone impersonated a dead voter in a hotly-contested council race.

"My first step now is to get (District Attorney) Craig Watkins' office to investigate," says Dallas County Commissioner Ken Mayfield. "I think what happened is what sometimes happens when people harvest mail-in votes."

The allegation of voting fraud came in the aftermath of the City Council District One Race in Oak Cliff, just south of downtown. There, Delia Jasso, the establishment candidate, backed by term-limited incumbent Elba Garcia, couldn't escape a runoff with Justin Epker, a fresh-faced Anglo looking to represent the largely Hispanic district.

In the May 9 city elections -- dominated by a referendum on a convention center hotel -- Jasso and Epker emerged as the top two candidates in a low-profile six-person race. Jasso won 1,158 votes to Epker's 989. Three of the losing candidates have since endorsed Jasso.

Immediately after the May elections, Epker's volunteers, armed with a list of people who voted in the general contest, knocked on doors looking to win new supporters and re-energize old ones. That's when volunteers, like kids happening upon a dark secret, discovered the name of a 65-year-old voter who they had heard died months earlier.

The voter, Juana Rodriguez, lived on 601 W. 9th St. in the heart of council district one. Texas Watchdog has confirmed with the Dallas County Election Commission that someone in her name and her address requested a mail-in ballot April 31. Someone mailed back the completed ballot, and it was received by the election office May 6.

The question now is whether she's dead.

Texas Watchdog visited the home, an older, gated house in Oak Cliff, a block away from a lively thoroughfare of Mexican restaurants and shops. We talked to a woman who identified herself as Rodriguez's daughter, but she wouldn't confirm whether her mother had passed away.

"I've been advised not to speak," she said. "I'm not giving out any information."

Mayfield, a Republican whose district covers parts of Oak Cliff, also received a tip about Juana Rodriguez. He verified with city health officials that she passed away in February, three months before a vote was cast in her name.

Epker, meanwhile, tells Texas Watchdog that he spoke with Rodriguez's children, who confirmed that she passed away Feb. 15. He says that a man acting like a campaign volunteer -- with Jasso literature attached to his clipboard -- came to their house looking for her, according to the children's account. When the daughter said she had died months earlier, he asked her additional questions.

Later, Epker says, another man returned to the house. This person used to work for Domingo Garcia, the husband of the outgoing incumbent. A legend in Latino political circles, Garcia is a former city council member and state representative who has thrown his considerable support behind Jasso. Epker says the first man likely used the daughter to help him fill out an application for a mail-in ballot, eventually enabling him to cast a vote in her name.

"I have some supporters who have been around a while in Oak Cliff and have been around in politics for a long time, and they told me to watch out for the mail-in ballots, Epker says. "They'll steal as many as they can."

Interestingly, the Jasso campaign knows of the man who visited the voter's daughter. Anna Casey, Jasso's campaign manager, confirmed that the man worked for Domingo Garcia in prior election contests more than 15 years ago. The man has no role, paid or otherwise, with the Jasso campaign, and Casey says that if he acted at all, it was on his own.

"Is it possible that he did this?" Casey asks. "Yes, it is, but I haven't seen this guy in 15 years, and no one from the campaign has ever heard from him."

Casey says she wonders whether the allegation of voter fraud is calculated to embarrass the Jasso campaign, if not the Garcias. Interestingly, Mayfield will be running against none other than Elba Garcia in the 2010 countywide elections.

It appears they both have one less vote to win over.

"I voted" sticker photograph by flickr user vox_efx, used via the Creative Commons license.
[ad#ad1forposts]