Border Town Election Ends With Extortion and Voter Fraud Arrests

By: Rachel Pulaski

The municipal election along the Mexican border in Sunland Park New Mexico has led to multiple arrests including voter fraud and a mayoral candidate charged with extortion. This is the second border town in New Mexico proven corrupt in the past year.

Mayor-Elect Daniel Salinas

Rob Nikolewski from Capitol Report New Mexico reported:

One of the weirdest elections in the country was held in the little border town of Sunland Park on Tuesday (March 6) as a mayoral candidate who is facing charges of extortion defeated a rival who received a lapdance from a topless woman in his campaign office days before voters went to the polls. Mayor pro tem and city council member Daniel Salinas- the extortion guy — defeated Gerardo Hernandez – the lapdance guy — 637-553 in unofficial results Tuesday night. But this thing may not be over for a number of reasons.

First, New Mexico law forbids anyone convicted of a felony from holding elected office and Salinas is facing charges that he tried to blackmail Gerardo Hernandez into dropping out of the race. We’ll get to that later because there are a number of other threads to this story. Such as the fact that officials from the state auditor’s office have come down to Sunland Park’s City Hall to begin a comprehensive audit of the city’s finances amid charges of mismanagement. And the Secretary of State’s office says that it found that at least six people who live just across Sunland Park’s city limits in El Paso illegally came into New Mexico and voted early in the mayoral race. On Tuesday, a fifth person associated with a city official was arrested and charged in the voter fraud accusations. A sixth person is still being sought.
Wait, there’s more.

State police recently took city worker Silvia Gomez into custody, saying she approached a couple from Texas who came to city hall looking for a building permit in January and asked them to illegally register to vote if they would cast ballots for Salinas. The district attorney for Doña Ana County, Amy Orlando, saw so much malfeasance that she asked to have to the election delayed but a district court judge refused her request and the election went off as scheduled Tuesday, although there was a large state police presence at the polls to make sure there were no incidents. It all makes Putin’s Russia look like Athenian democracy.

Keep reading there is more.

#1 March 7, 2012 at 1:57 am
FurryGuy commented:

I see this debacle as merely a test for how the November election will be conducted.
#3 March 7, 2012 at 2:43 am
FurryGuy commented:

Strange, I can’t seem to find Daniel Salinas’ party affiliation anywhere in the linked article. Having played many times in the past the media game of “Guess that Party” would strongly suggest that he’s a Democrat. If he were a Republican such would be prominently and repeatedly mentioned.

*GASP* Say it ain’t so! Another corrupt Dem?
#4 March 7, 2012 at 3:48 am
David Kramer commented:

I spent about 6 weeks in NM, I was almost ran off the road because of some folks that thought I did not get out of their way fast enough.

We are this close to going in the same direction as Mexico. Crime and corruption is becoming rampant in our country. Power corrupts, I would like you to watch the 1st Atlas Shrugged movie if you have not seen it. In a society where there is only the productive, all you need is a few courts to decide disputes. When you have a society that is based on socialism, you have vast wealth that the government uses to corrupt. That is our problem, we have to eliminate that source of their power, our labor. We have to quit funding the very ones that are using our labor for their power.
#7 March 7, 2012 at 6:09 am
squeaky commented:

OT but a follow up to an earlier post. i saw a lot of dissing this story as in the boy did it to himself…….if true, totally should be an eye opener.
[The boy raised his hand, eager to answer the question. "What would you know about it?" exclaimed the teacher dismissively. "You're not our race."]
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/was_boy_in_kc_fire_attack_a_victim_of_his_schools_racist_teaching.html
#8 March 7, 2012 at 7:29 am
Jeffery commented:

A recent FOX News poll had Latino voters nationwide favoring Obama over Romney, 70% to 14%. Obviously, Romney’s numbers will improve before the general election as he abandons the most conservative wing of his party (but who are they going to vote for, Obama?? lol).

Fortunately for conservatives, local Republicans are using effective voter suppression tactics at the state level (gerrymandering and voter ID laws) that will help.

Did you know Obama has deported more undocumented persons than any President?
#10 March 7, 2012 at 7:50 am
LaDonna In Las Cruces commented:

I love less than 40 miles from Sunland Park and am floored by the vote. There were 3 candidates running for the position. One of the guys, from what I understand, was not well known, but that’s beside the point. It’s beyond me how you can vote in a corrupt individual (and 2 of the 3 obviously were). I am floored by the citizens’s in this small town. It seems this small town is full of shady politicians. Looks like there will be another election, again.

#4 David Kramer, I take exception to your hint that this is Mexico. I’m sorry you ran into some bad drivers. I’ve been to California and have also experienced bad drivers. Does that mean I was in Mexico? I love my state. Yes it has its good and bad sides, but it is an awesome state. Please don’t put all of us in one basket and please don’t compare us to Mexico. We are far from it.
#11 March 7, 2012 at 8:03 am
Peter Warner commented:

Question for LaDonna@10:

Can you tell us what the party affiliations are of those three candidates?

Since you live close by, I’m hoping you might be able to clarify that aspect of the story.

Best regards, Peter Warner.
#12 March 7, 2012 at 8:03 am
Floyd commented:

the MSM will continue to say there is no such thing as voter fraud
#13 March 7, 2012 at 8:22 am
Eriah commented:

#11 March 7, 2012 at 8:03 am
Peter Warner commented:

Dem. and Rep. parties are forbidden to get involved with the municipal election. The municipal race carries no party affiliation.
#14 March 7, 2012 at 8:24 am
Marsh626 commented:

Hispanic countries like Mexico are plagued with chronic corruption, the kind that would make Chicago look prude. So, it shouldn’t be surprising that as America essentially becomes North Mexico as hispanics are quickly becoming the new racial majority across America that we get the same exact kinds of chronic corruption seen in 3rd world hispanic nations… This is a glimpse of America’s [lack of a] future.
#15 March 7, 2012 at 8:36 am
John commented:

1.) Sunland Park has a race track/casino, and since the Tigua Tribe’s casino on the east side of El Paso was shut down a decade ago by Texas officials, it’s the only legal gambling spot in the area. That makes the $$$ running through Sunland Park larger than your average 14,000 person city, and explains in part why it’s such a prime target for corrupt people to want to run for office.

2.) If you didn’t know already, the for-the-moment mayor of Sunland Park, Martin Resendiz, was planning to challenge Republican Steve Pearce for the NM-2 seat in Congress as a Democrat when he had to drop his bid after it came out he had signed a $1 million contract with a company while drunk and without consulting the rest of the Sunland Park council.

3.) City manager Jaime Aguilera, on whose computer the lap dance video was found, pleaded no contest a decade ago on a charge of facilitating a bribe while working in Cathedral City, Calif. (a charge later plea bargained down and expunged by Riverside County). The El Paso Times reported the incident in early 2010 and Sunland Park’s council fired him in October of that year, only to rehire him nine months later.

As long as the racino is there, you’re going to have people looking to get in on the cash flow gravy train. Another nearby town, Anthony, also held a much-quieter election on Tuesday, but a northern New Mexico Indian tribe is looking to buy land and set up their own full casino there, on the Texas-New Mexico state line. If that happens, look for something similar to Sunland Park to start happening in Anthony about a decade from now.
#16 March 7, 2012 at 9:43 am
Patty commented:

OT

Obama on Rush and Fluke: I don’t like to see private citizens insulted for speaking up

He’s fine, of course, with private citizens being attacked by his own campaign if it helps squeeze extra cash out of liberal suckers obsessed with the “Kochtopus.” Granted, you can’t compare Fluke to the Kochs because they have endless resources at their disposal to fight back whereas she only has the Democratic establishment/major media eager to use her as a martyr for O’s “war on women” messaging in the fall, but what about, say, Joe the Plumber? Jonah Goldberg looks back:

You may recall that when Joe Wurzelbacher was approached by Barack Obama entirely accidentally, he became something of a political celebrity for having a philosophical disagreement with the president over spreading the wealth around and all that. Before long, the mainstream press went to battle stations to discredit the man. He didn’t even have a plumber’s license! (didn’t need one in Ohio). He had financial problems! He was a fraud! An astroturf plant! Blah blah blah. The Democrats, likewise, were unrestrained in their efforts to ridicule the man. Here’s Joe Biden ridiculing Wurzelbacher (and offering a tendentious argument about taxes)…

When average citizens are thrust into the political debate, they are heroes — if they confirm prevailing liberal arguments. When they run against the grain of the preferred narrative, they are ground down, caricatured, and treated to corrosive media skepticism.

On her Facebook page, Palin wonders re: Bill Maher, “Pres. Obama says he called Sandra Fluke because of his daughters. For the sake of everyone’s daughter, why doesn’t his super PAC return the $1 million he got from a rabid misogynist?” Well, we know why. I confess, after years of “teabagger” snickering, grotesque fingerpointing over the Tucson shooting, and most recently the high-fiving on Twitter over Breitbart’s death, it’s increasingly difficult to blog about these sporadic “civility” lectures. What’s left to say? They’re frauds. They care about “tone” precisely to the extent that it can be exploited to electoral advantage and no further. To write about it even to dump on them for it is to give them more credit than they deserve. Any questions?

Note the exchange at the very end here, too. If you can’t decipher all of it, John McCormack has a transcript. Turns out when O’s asked to critique right-wing rhetoric, he can muster a few thoughts, but when it comes time to weigh in on the “war on women” schtick being pushed by Debbie “New Tone” Wasserman-Schultz, suddenly he’s not in the business of arbitrating. Again, any questions?

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/06/obama-on-rush-and-fluke-i-dont-like-to-see-private-citizens-insulted-for-speaking-up/
#17 March 7, 2012 at 10:02 am
bg commented:

++

well i’m betting this sort of “politics” runs rampant throughout
the country, right up to, and inclusive of, the corrupted OO..

==
#18 March 7, 2012 at 10:09 am
Patty commented:

OT

David Axelrod’s Communist Past Comes to Light

Stacy McCain has a preview of a Paul Kengor article in this month’s print edition of the American Spectator documenting the communist ties of President Obama’s top political operative, David Axelrod. Two key figures in Axelrod’s past are known communists David Canter and Don Rose who acted as mentors to Axelrod during the early years of his career.

Rose and Canter played a critical role as “mentors” to young David Alexrod, Kengor explains, citing numerous sources including David Canter’s son Marc Canter for the fact that it was a letter of recommendation from Don Rose that helped Axelrod land a job as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. By 1987, all three of these men — Don Rose, David Canter and David Axelrod, who had left journalism to become a paid political adviser — were part of the campaign to re-elect Harold Washington as Chicago’s mayor.

Kengor’s American Spectator article is important because Axelrod’s background — like Obama’s associations with such left-wing figures as Frank Marshall Davis and Bill Ayers — shows how ideas, policies and rhetoric originating in Marxist-Leninist doctrine and anti-American propaganda have been “mainstreamed” into Democratic Party politics.

Critics of Kengor’s investigative report will likely raise the charge of ”McCarthyism,” expect5ing us to miss the irony of that accusation because, of course, revelations from the Venona papers and other sources have largely vindicated Sen. Joseph McCarthy: There wereSoviet agents in the U.S. government, and the American Communist Party was at all times an instrument of Soviet subversion.

What strikes me, in Kengor’s extensive account of Axelrod’s background (the article is more than 5,000 words long), is the remarkable degree to which Americans seem to have lost their horror of Communism in the post-Cold War era.

Be sure to read the whole thing. I doubt the perception of communism is going to change as long as the left controls the schools. Not only do they fail to teach the horrific history of communism, Marxism’s tenets are routinely finding their way into lesson plans.

http://lonelyconservative.com/2012/03/david-axelrods-communist-past-comes-to-light/

With people like this in Washington, you think fraud? Explosion of fraud. What else do these people have.
#19 March 7, 2012 at 10:14 am
Patty commented:

WILL DEMOCRATS WIN THE DEAD VOTE?

One of my dad’s favorite sayings was, “Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse.”

How about a corpse that can vote?

An outfit called Project Veritas – run by James O’Keefe, who made the videos that brought down ACORN – ran a little experiment in New Hampshire Tuesday and found that without voter ID requirements, dead people were offered a rare opportunity to participate in the political process.

Because you see, Mssrs. Obama and Holder, states want voter ID laws not to prevent minorities from voting, but to PREVENT THE DECEASED FROM VOTING.

Attorney General Eric Holder has been waging an increasingly aggressive campaign of late against state mandatory voter ID laws.

Because he’s concerned about discrimination. Against zombies.

Dead people have long been a major Democratic constituency, given that Democrats mostly control the big cities where such voter fraud – and other types – tends to occur.

Now, if Republicans could somehow swing some of the dead people vote their way, everything might equal out in the end. But it’s just statistically inescapable that since the population tends to be more concentrated in Democratic urban strongholds, the cemeteries have a greater population of fresh corpses as well.

http://catholicexchange.com/will-the-democrats-win-the-dead-vote/
#20 March 7, 2012 at 10:19 am
Patty commented:

ot SORTA

25 Signs That The Nazification Of America Is Almost Complete

#12 Under Adolf Hitler, abortion was made “safe and legal” in Germany.

It turns out that Hitler was a huge fan of the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger. And as I wrote about recently, it was Sanger that once said the following….

“The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/20-signs-that-the-nazification-of-america-is-almost-complete

read the other 24 signs.

Voter fraud? of course there is voter fraud.
#21 March 7, 2012 at 10:23 am
burt commented:

Following in the path of his hero Governor Richardson.