Ultimate result of Hidalgo County JP contest between Segovia, Treviño hinges on appeal process
Despite the exceptional amount of attention and work put into the Hidalgo County justice of the peace election contest between Ramon Segovia and Sonia Treviño, the entire issue may just wind up being decided by how fast courts can work.
On Wednesday a judge reversed the results of a May runoff race for Hidalgo County justice of the peace Precinct 3 Place 1, declaring Ramon Segovia the winner rather than Sonia Treviño.
The courtroom when Judge Juan Manuel Bañales made his ruling Wednesday. Staff photo.
Segovia had sued in June, alleging that voting improprieties were the only reason Treviño had come out 31 votes ahead of him in the May primary runoff for the seat.
After three long weeks of trial, State District Judge Manual Bañales ruled in favor of Segovia and declared him the winner of the race, throwing out over 80 votes, which left Segovia with a 44-vote lead over Treviño.
Largely, Bañales threw out those ballots because voters had been assisted at the polls without needing assistance. In three instances, Bañales suspected the sort of conduct he’d heard testimony on had been criminal in nature.
Gilberto Hinojosa, Segovia’s attorney, said the testimony had left a “black mark” on elections in Hidalgo County.
“All of that, it smells really bad,” he said. “And it raises questions regarding the integrity of the electoral process. I mean, this is the worst I’ve ever seen.”
Wednesday’s ruling was certainly a significant win for Segovia, but he needs another win if he means to be justice of the peace.
Treviño intends to appeal Bañales’ decision. Since it’s a primary race, both sides say Segovia needs a decision from the 13th Court of Appeals affirming his win on that appeal before the end of the month to make his victory count.
The official last day for a decision is ambiguous. Hinojosa thinks it’s August 29, Treviño’s legal team thinks that could be accurate or it may be a couple days sooner.
Either way and even with an expedited process, it’s a tight schedule. A court reporter has to get the record straight, which will likely take at least a week. Attorneys for both sides have work to do, which will also eat up time.
Bañales, who has a reputation for driving proceedings hard, made reference Wednesday to the process being feasible if attorneys only slept three hours at night.
The timeline, Hinojosa says, has been unfairly stacked against Segovia since May — though he says it’s imperative that the 13th make a decision in time.
“It is in their hands now to stop it,” he said. “It is in their hands now to decide that we should not allow this electoral process to go on in the county of Hidalgo.”
Hidalgo County Elections Administrator Hilda Salinas leaving the courtroom Tuesday. Staff photo.
Hinojosa thinks the situation points toward a more fundamental problem.
“The legislature has to take a look at this again, and it has to look at the way you file appeals in party primaries,” he said. “Because what essentially happens is they destroy a contestants right to challenge for violations of the election code because if they’re not able to complete the appeal within the really, really short timeframe that is left, then they have lost their right to file an election contest.”
Rick Salinas, Treviño’s attorney, agrees that time is on his side.
“The process to get all of this ready is a lot. It’s gonna be virtually impossible,” he said.
Salinas says he expects the timeline will make Segovia “lose even though he thinks he won,” and even though a judge said Wednesday that he’d won.
The contest between Segovia and Treviño has been exceptionally tumultuous.
At one point Salinas found himself disqualified from representing Treviño, though that decision was reversed. A significant paperwork error led to an effort to have Bañales recused, which was also unsuccessful.
Both sides have accused the other of political gamesmanship over courtroom maneuvers.
Perhaps most significantly, a legal technicality resulted in Treviño’s team not calling almost all of its witnesses to the stand — which Salinas says obscured the truth.
“The way they used it, they perverted the rule,” he said.
