Election Aftermath

By now everyone knows about the Dems routing the GOP in Tuesday's elections. An unforeseen consequence of the power-shift: because Texas lost a bunch of long-serving Democratic congresscritters after the Tom DeLay-inspired gerrymandering, in the Democratically controlled House of Representatives, the Lone Star State will come up short when the D's hand out the committee chairs in January. Thanks, Tom!

Closer to home, a Republican candidate pulled an upset in the perennially Democratic Rio Grande Valley: GOP challenger Carlos Cascos ousted incumbent Cameron County Judge Gilberto Hinojosa. Perhaps it's karmic payback for how Hinojosa gave away Isla Blanca Park to fat-cat developers.

Also locally -- and unsurprisingly -- a computer glitch screwed up the vote count in Hidalgo County, according to the Associated Press:

The county's top election official discovered the mistake when early voting results in House District 28 put long-shot Constitution Party candidate Ron Avery ahead of popular Democratic incumbent Henry Cuellar by almost 2,000 votes with roughly 2,200 tabulated. ...

Election Systems and Software, which employs the programmer, provides voting equipment to 145 of the 254 counties in Texas, according to the secretary of state.

No word on electronic voting problems anywhere else in the state.

For another RGV blogger's take on Tuesday's turn of events, check out Rico Politico's election wrapup over at Rio Grande Valley Politics.