By María Eugenia Guerra

"An election is not just something you throw together," said Webb County Elections Administrator John Beckelhymer of the upcoming March 12 primaries. "An election has a very long cycle, and not only for the candidate who begins by appointing a campaign treasurer. That's the first step, for he or she to file. When the time is right, about 100 days prior to an election, a candidate can register for a position on the ballot. This is done with the party chairs. The candidates have to file a contribution and expenditures report Jan. 15. Our office is the depository for those. Placement on ballot takes place January 16," Beckelhymer continued.
"Independent of what they do as candidates who are filing, positioning themselves on the ballot, complying with their party guidelines, and campaigning, we are also moving along with a great deal of preparation to ensure that we have enough ballots. We make up a mock ballot and send it off to ballot printers in Austin. In an election such as the one coming up, there will be two ballots, one Republican and one Democrat. Chief Deputy Oscar Villarreal and I start going over the numbers from past elections to get an idea of how many ballots to order for each precinct. We begin organizing an elections school for election judges and recruiting and hiring about 300 temps we are going to need to staff all 50 precincts. We are doing that now. Many of the election judges have staffed prior elections and are the appointees of the county commissioners. They are not paid much for a great deal of time and effort," he said, adding that Villarreal, one of three full time employees of the Office of the Elections Administrator, is one of 150 certified election registration administrators in the state. So is Beckelhymer.
"This is an extremely small staff -- three full-time employees and two part-timers," Beckelhymer said, adding, "Oscar, Anna Escobedo, and Roxanne Martinez are the full-timers. Jesus Briones and I are the part-timers."
"Elections used to be chaotic, but we have streamlined the process. We are cross-trained. Whether 40 percent of Laredo's 89,000 registered voters turn out for the primaries or three percent turnout for a referendum, we still undertake a great deal of preparation. All the polling places have to be staffed. You still need to have enough ballots. All your systems have to be in place," he continued.
Beckelhymer said ballots cost 27¢ each. "I try to take historical information and factor in a statistical analysis for the growth rate in each precinct and then make the best educated guess I can for ordering ballots. Early voting will be my first indicator that I am on track," he said.
Beckelhymer said the only time the elections office ran out of ballots is when election judges failed to follow written instructions to call his office every two hours. He said that recent redistricting lines have yielded nine more precincts. "I will order about 40,000 ballots for this election. There are up to 17 different ballots for every election," he explained.
"The standing rule is that during the election every two hours you are in touch with the election judges. This allows me to gauge if the number of ballots is the right number. I start moving the ballots around. As a result I have saved the county almost a half million dollars doing it that way," he said.
Beckelhymer's office also conducts city and educational district elections. "So far we are scheduled for nine elections in 2002," he said.
Beckelhymer said the cost of this upcoming election will run about $90,000, of which $10,000 addresses the cost of ballots. "We will bill most of the cost to the Democratic and Republican parties; however, early voting is paid for by the county. It costs about $38,000. Early voting is one of the easiest ways to vote since the early voting sites have to have ballots from all precincts. Voters should take advantage of early voting. No matter which precinct you live in, no matter if your precinct lines changed, you can vote without a hassle at early voting. They should also be able to tell you then and there where your new precinct voting place is, if it changed."
Beckelhymer likened the lists of registered voters to a live creature. "It is ever-changing. People die or become 18 everyday. Redistricting was a long, late project in which 128,000 people had to be placed in their correct precinct. Lines moved and polling sites have moved," he said, adding that a county redistricting committee, basing itself on census figures, carved out nine new precincts. "The Department of Justice had to review it and the State legislature affected our plans three times as they created a new legislative district. All of this had an impact on what we do and what we needed to do for this election," he said, adding, "From Zacate Creek on down, everything they did changed what we did. In a period of seven or eight days we completed work that we should have had a month to do. We wrapped it up very quickly."
Beckelhymer said his office printed and mailed 84,000 voter registration certificates, of which about 6,000 were returned undeliverable. "People moved and did not advise us. Those are not forwardable. We need to send a letter concerning this back to that same address and hope that the letter will be forwarded. As soon as the certificate is returned, we input the name on it as a suspended voter. We have 6,000 suspended voters. You show up on the voting rolls with an S by your name. The judge is supposed to ask you for your correct address to reinstate your certificate as a non-suspended one," he continued.

He urged everyone to carefully check his or her voter registration certificate. "Polling sites have changed and you have to be sure it is accurate. "Early voting," he said, "will obviate the problems created by redistricting because early voting is not precinct specific." Beckelhymer said that early voting continues for the 12 days prior to the last week of the elections. Beginning on the last Saturday of early voting, the polls are open for 12 hours a day.
"In mid-January our office began accepting applications for ballots by mail. Very few vote by mail these days, though once it was a way to snare the vote of the elderly and infirm," he said. "Where once there were requests for 1,400 ballots by mail, there are only 300 now. We send a mobile unit to all those retirement homes now. Voting by mail ends March 5," he continued.
With all that said about the inner workings of effectively staging an election with only a handful of employees, Beckelhymer allowed -- almost as an afterthought -- "We are the keepers of democracy. We keep the process fair and legal. We do a large, vital job with great efficiency for the least amount of taxpayer money and with a minimum of employees. We've saved half-a-million dollars in ballots alone by being more prudent. Compare the election issues of 1996 -- allegations of voter fraud being perpetrated on the elderly -- to the issues today -- signage. There's a confidence in the system," he said.
"I like to think that I run this like a business. I am very careful. All expense has to be justified. I look for ways to save money on maintenance agreements for equipment. I think we are a model for doing the most amount of work with the least amount of money," Beckelhymer said.
"We will avoid what is wrong and what looks wrong. We do not do favors for anyone. Information available for one candidate is available to another. It would look wrong to be wasteful when something so vital as the elections is at stake," he concluded.
"This tells you the whole story from 1996 to the present," Beckelhymer said, pulling a color chart from the organized stacks of paper that surround his work space. "We are handling a 62.5 percent increase in elections with about 40 percent more registered voters on a miniscule budget that has increased by 4.66 percent while the county budget as a whole has increased by 33 percent. And we are doing so with a 12.5 percent decrease in employees, a 25 percent decrease in our cost per registered voter, and an 86 percent drop in comp time accrued," he said.
For further information on the upcoming elections, call Beckelhymer at (956) 721-2493.