Three women who claim they worked in State Senator Tara Rios Ybarra’s unsuccessful re-election campaign have filed theft of services charges against her with the Raymondville Police Dept.

The election workers say they were paid $8 an hour for work they did during absentee voting but were stiffed when it came time to be paid for work on election day.

Eunice Luna says she passed out sample ballots in Sebastian as well as working in Raymondville. She says she is owed $168.00 by the campaign.

Martha Garcia said she held up signs all day in front of the old EMS office on East Hidalgo Ave. on election day and is owed $144.00.

Andrea De La Paz says she is owed $192.00 for 12 hours she put in on election day.

On Tuesday the women filed a theft of service complaint at the Raymondville Police Dept. with officer L. Munoz. They were advised to take their complaint to the police by Willacy County & District Attorney Bernard Ammerman, after first visiting his office to complain, they say.

The women say they were supposed to be paid by Rios Ybarra’s campaign manager in Willacy County "but all we got was the run around," said Luna.

"We've been calling her every day and she stopped taking our calls so we went out to her house to see her."

The women said Judge Migdalia Lopez and county judge candidate Emilio "Jr." Vera paid their workers in advance.

They also say the Rios Ybarra campaign was supposed to provide them with food while they campaigned in front of the polling place.

"John Gonzales (judge candidate) gave us a case of water and some sandwiches. Migdalia Lopez and Yesenia Rosas (Pct. 1 Justice of the Peace candidate) fed us also."

"It’s not right that other people had to feed us. It’s kind of sad," said Luna.

Robert Chavez, Rios Ybarra overall campaign manager, told the Chronicle/News that the whole thing is being overblown.

"I don't believe this is a news story," he said.

"Some of these people weren't directly hired and some we were unable to get a hold of them to document, there were 11 men and 11 women working in the campaign.

We are paying those we have complete information for, we have been in communication with them and we are paying them slowly, but surely. We want to keep up with the State Ethics Commission. We are working hard to get everyone's names and addresses," he concluded.

The women gave the Chronicle/News a list of 20 names but 17 of those were first names only and three were fullnames. There were 10 female and 10 male names on the list.

Rep. Rios Ybarra won Willacy County by a big margin with 61.25 percent of the votes cast. Her opponent, J.M. Lozano, won big in Kleberg, Brooks and Jim Hogg Counties giving him the election victory.

Lozano will meet Libertarian candidate Richard "Rick" Shuey in the general election in November.