This is an election contest case. Appellant-Contestant Rudy C. Ortiz and Appellee-Contestee Bob Thompson were the only two candidates for the position of Councilperson, Place 6, for the City of San Antonio in a municipal election held on Saturday, April 7, 1979. Thompson was certified as the winner of that election, the return thereof showing 4,186 votes cast for Thompson and 4,102 votes cast for Ortiz. Ortiz brought this suit contesting the election, alleging as grounds therefor: (1) that prior to the election “the City of San Antonio, Texas, designated new polling places”, at least one of which was located in District 6, that such changes “were required to be precleared by the Department of Justice”, that the city failed to obtain such preclearance, and that the changes therefore violated the Federal Voting Rights Act of 1965,
42 U.S.C. Sec. 1973 et seq.; (2) that “scores of voters” were denied the right to vote because they were “erroneously registered to precincts in which they did not reside”; (3) that during absentee voting, Thompson's campaign workers engaged in “fraudulent and unlawful conspiratorial actions” which “suppressed the will of the legal voters” and violated V.A.T.S. Election Code Art. 5.05 and other laws, to wit: “falsely impersonated officials and picked up completed ballots and caused the ballots not to be returned to the proper officials by suppressing same and/or destroying them; gave false information and directions regarding the procedures to vote; requested ballots for prospective electors who in fact had not requested same; fraudulently suggested to qualified voters that by filling in some ballots and other forms that such persons were in fact voting, thereby causing such voters not to cast official ballots; gave qualified voters who had not applied or received a ballot by mail, a ballot to be cast in their homes; and (4) that ”several qualified electors were denied their rights to vote . . . due to the severe mechanical problems occurring shortly after the polls opened.“