Yesterday, El Paso News received a copy of a complaint filed with the El Paso County Elections Department against 388th District Court candidate Joy Degenhart. The complaint, filed by Mayte Gonzalez, the sister and Campaign Manager for Marlene Gonzalez, the incumbent of the 388th District Court, alleges that Degenhart violated election law with the placement of one of Degenhart’s political signs.
Gonzalez’ complaint included a picture of one of Degenhart’s campaign signs placed outside of the Enrique Moreno Courthouse building. According to a picture of the political sign provided to El Paso News, the sign appears to be too close to a polling station.
The Texas Election Code prohibits the placement of political signs within 100 feet of any polling station marker identifying a voting location. In an email, Melissa Martin, the Elections Information & Resource Coordinator, of the El Paso County Elections Department, confirms that the campaign sign “was placed within the 100-foot marker.” Martin added that the political sign was removed.
Martin also wrote that she “will contact the candidate to address this election law violation.”
We asked Joy Degenhart about the complaint. In an email yesterday, Degenhart wrote that she has “not received any communications from Ms. Martin or the Election Department.”
Degenhart added that her “team is in compliance with the election code.” She added that “each sign placed by a team member at the courthouse was documented with a photograph to confirm placement and compliance with the election code.” Degenhart added that she has “not had a team member placing signs at the courthouse since February 23rd.”
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In a follow up email, Degenhart included a copy of the email notification from the Elections Department she received and her response to it. Degenhart wrote to Melissa Martin that Degenhart “was able to confirm with my team that I did not have anyone present today at the Courthouse nor did my team place signs” yesterday. Degenhart reiterated to Martin that her “team has not been to the courthouse since the 23rd.”
The notification of complaint sent to Degenhart by the Elections Department included the picture of the sign in question. In her response to Martin, Degenhart wrote that she “reviewed the picture with my team and confirmed that they did not place the sign at that location.”
In her follow up email to us, Degenhart wrote that her “team has not been at the Courthouse and is unable to confirm whether the sign was moved and or who moved it.”
The 388th Political Signs Controversies
This is not the first time that the race for the 388th District Court seat led to complaints about political signs.
In January, a banner for the Marlene Gonzalez Campaign was illegally removed from her property. The removal of the sign was caught on camera. The removal of political signs by anyone other than an official or the candidate’s team can lead to criminal charges.
In 2020, Gonzalez’ opponent, Laura Strathman, which was defeated by Gonzalez on July 14, 2020, was also caught on video removing a Gonzalez political sign.
At the time, Strathman said that she was asked to remove the sign by her neighbor. In a video, the neighbor denied asking Strathmann to remove the sign, adding that after we broke the story, Strathmann asked the neighbor for the “favor” of recording a video confirming that he asked Strathmann to remove the sign.
Strathmann posted the video on social media. However, a few days later, in another video, the neighbor said that he never asked Strathmann to remove the sign and that the video in which he says he asked her to remove it was a “favor” for Strathmann.
Disclosure
Each election cycle, El Paso News publishes the names of the political candidates that the technology company owned by Martín Paredes provides branding and technology services to. Although not required to, we provide this list to our readers for transparency purposes. Clients of Cognent have no influence over the stories we choose to cover. Click here for more details.
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