Webb County Elections Office at fault for ballot mistakes

Our local officials have become experts at putting the blame elsewhere instead of assuming responsibility. A few months ago, when it was reported that Laredo Community College was facing accrediation problems, the fault was placed on a change in the reportng system the college was using. Phrases such as "there was a glitch" or "the process was put into place in a hurry" and thus resulted in erros.  No one took responsiblity for monitoring for such "glitches" or for NOT implementing any process in such a hurry that it turned out to be error-filled.

Now, it's the Webb County Elections administrator's turn.  Instead of taking reponsibilty for the recent ballot mistakes, elections administrator has sought to blame some "invisible man". Notice the explanation he gave to the Laredo Morning Times.

Excerpted from the famous Laredo Morning Times

“We found out one particular block that was supposed to be in District 7 we had in District 5,” Villarreal said Saturday.

He said the particular block’s precinct mistakenly did not reflect summer redistricting changes.

Villarreal could not confirm, specifically, which addresses were affected.

A District 7 resident called the elections office Friday after she received what she believed was the wrong ballot. Officials confirmed the mistake.

In the first sentence, Villarreal does come close to admitting fault when he says "We had", however by the following line, the active voice "we had" quickly becomes the passive, (no fault)
"the particular block's precinct mistakenly did not reflect.....changes".  Aha, so it was the block precinct's fault for "not reflecting those changes".

Nice job Mr. Villarreal, a better, more accurate way would have been to say: " We failed to show the summer redistricting changes for that particular precinct block".

But rest assured, all ballot irregularities have now been corrected. Why? Because the Webb County Elections department says so. Whew!


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