AUSTIN—The Texas Public Policy Foundation released a new video titled “Politiquería,” which emphasizes the need to ensure and uphold the integrity of our elections. In it, elected officials, investigators and experts explain how corruption in elections has influenced daily life in parts of Texas.
“The way that we live has much to do with our fundamental right to vote,” says Omar Escobar, district attorney for Duval, Jim Hogg and Starr counties in Texas. “There is a difference between a political consultant and what we now term the ‘politiquería.’ A political consultant is going to talk about the imaging and the messaging; that’s different than a woman at a pantry center giving pantry to individuals and insinuating that if they don’t vote in a particular way, that they’re not going to get pantry anymore.”
Former McAllen mayoral candidate Othal Brand Jr. says he was approached by a young man who offered to deliver 500 pre-signed mail-in ballots to him.
“It was fraud, beyond a shadow of a doubt,” Brand says. “In the Valley, they joke about it.”
Ensuring election integrity is vital, not only for our form of government but for our way of life.