Remember Florida 2000, where James Baker, redfaced and shouting, created the Republican reality—with the complicity of the press, of course—that Bush had won the election, before the courts had ruled, and before all the votes were counted? (Thank God Joe Lieberman called him on that… Oh, wait…)
Mexico 2006 = Ohio 2004 = Florida 2000. Let’s see why:
The blogosphere doesn’t seem to be working the Mexican election real hard, but let’s try to be at least a little internationalist, OK? After all, every time the wingers capture a national government, it hurts us and our country. (Look at how Berlusconi helped out Bush with the forged yellowcake memos, for example).
So here, as I understand it, is the key legal point for demanding a recount:
“Mexican law is very clear on when a ballot box can be opened: only when there are problems with the vote tallies, when the tally sheet has obviously been changed, or when the box has been tampered with,” Mr. Ugalde said.
But here’s the problem: The only way to check the results of the electronic tally against the physical ballots is to count all the physical ballots—which the law, in its current broken state, forbids. (It’s as if, when when the bank made a mistake in your checking account, you couldn’t open up the envelope with the physical checks in it to check the electronic records, unless the envelope was torn. Who wrote that law? Bob Ney?
The federal government agency that runs the Mexican election system is the IFE, and it would fall to them to handle any recount. Here’s a long and thoughtful post by blogger El Machete on IFE, vote fraud, and the history of Mexican elections:
A reader asks: “Is the IFE dirty?†It’s safe to say that the IFE did not dispel valid doubts about the result and the procedures leading to it. …
Yesterday, Reforma had a piece by José Woldenberg. He and others (José AgustÃn OrtÃz Pinqueti comes to mind) laid the foundations of the current IFE. They persuaded congress to allocate large amounts of money to build its infrastructure, manufacture tamper-proof election IDs, etc. And, to say more about Woldenberg’s background and political genealogy, Woldenberg was a leftist, a founder of the PSUM.
In his article, Woldenberg defends the election, the PREP, and the IFE. He dismisses the idea of “worms†or other pieces of software smuggled into the system to manipulate the results, suggesting it is a silly conspiracy theory. …
[However,] By not opening the ballot packages, the IFE erodes its credibility, which is to say the credibility of the entire political system. And yes, there is an essential commonality between 1988 and 2006: the official winner (the PAN now, like the PRI then) is refusing to open the ballot packages. (Salinas even got the 1988 ballot packages burned, with the support of the PAN.)
Back to Woldenberg — I’m not willing to follow him in his defense of the security of the IFE computer system. Why? One, there are many possible ways in which a computer system can be compromised. And two, the stakes are high and the temptation to get around the locks and manipulate the results is proportional to those stakes. As the Wall Street Journal says, think Florida 2000 — or Ohio 2004. A healthy dose of skepticism, particularly when things look too funny, has nothing to do with being a conspiracy nut.
But even if the IFE central computers weren’t Deibolded, there are plenty of additional techniques in the winger vote fraud playbook:
Woldenberg excludes the mere possibility of a “centrally machinated fraud.†I’m not sure about that either. It depends on what you mean by “centrally.†It’s perfectly possible to go Al Qaeda in committing an electoral fraud. After all, Calderón only needed to wink, insinuate to his followers, mid- and low-level party operatives, etc. that local and individual creativity to advance the goals of the party and stop López Obrador would be duly appreciated. Then you’d have both, a decentralized or retail attempt to commit fraud (therefore hard to pin down) and “plausible deniability†by Calderón and the PAN leaders. Would this kind of fraud suffice? In a tight election, yes.
Sound familiar? Like nodders-and-winkers Ken Blackwell, or Katherine Harris?
Did Calderón, the PAN leadership, and the big donors of his campaign send a message to their troops to cheat? Absolutely. The all-out propaganda campaign launched by the right, a sector of the business class, the government of Vicente Fox, and the leaders of the PAN against López Obrador sent that kind of message. If López Obrador is a “danger to Mexico,†then you get rid of it. You do whatever it takes to stop him — yes, including his assassination.
Sound familiar? I wonder if the Mexican wingers publish people’s addresses too?
Am I exaggerating here? Absolutely not! Again, consider history: in 1994, Luis Donaldo Colosio, the presidential candidate of the then ruling party (PRI) was killed in a campaign event. If you only read the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, you may get the sense that the PAN is a modern political party, led by a dynamic group of highly educated yuppies, with a well groomed, wholesome, Harvard educated candidate. Yes, a stratum of wealthy, white European business people and yuppies with good jobs in the the formal sector, banks, brokerage firms, foreign corporations, etc. is one of the PAN’s core constituencies. Moreover, it is clear that in issues that have the biggest impact on the lives and livelihoods of the Mexican people (i.e. economic policy and management of public resources) this is the group in the PAN that sets the agenda.
But the PAN has another core constituency, a crowd that turns out real votes (and, my suspicious mind would add, some fake ones on top) in densely populated areas of central and western Mexico. It is no accident that two of the states where the PAN has absolutely refused to open the ballot packages are Guanajuato and Jalisco. These states have a long and bloody history of Catholic, right-wing extremism — including terrorism, assassinations, and political intimidation. For more on this, google the word “Yunqueâ€. Or google the name of a journalist who has studied them closely (Ãlvaro Delgado, from the magazine Proceso).
In brief, I cannot rule out that a “centrally machinated fraud†is being attempted in Mexico. I think there is strong evidence pointing to that possibility. And, in a country like Mexico, with its history, the burden of the proof must fall on the PAN, on the party of the rich and powerful, and on the IFE, an institution that has cost much to the public. With a political floor so uneven, the attribution of political responsibilities must be be apportioned in accordance to wealth, power, and opportunities.
But it is true that, in this electoral cycle, the poor have been all but victims. However imperfect, they have used their organization — and their numbers — to improve their condition. Still, they clearly have an uphill battle. But this game is not over yet.
(See also El Machete’s excellent followup on evidence of irregularities.)
Now, why would Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, and Mexico 2006 seem to similar? One answer: They seem similar because they are similar—the same playbook is being used. (Maybe that’s why the Times editorializes in favor of a complete recount.) And speaking of playbooks, does this sound like Ohio 2004, or what (via Latin America News Review):
Although Sunday’s voting was peaceful and turnout high, reporters in the streets and letters to the press testify to the thousands of voters who waited in line for hours, only to be told that their polling place had run out of ballots. Thousands more were informed that their names had disappeared from the rolls.
And does this sound like Ohio 2004, and Florida 2000:
In claiming he won the Sunday election, Lopez Obrador cited many clear irregularities including manipulating preliminary vote totals, initially never counting 3 millions votes and then in hindsight only counting 2.5 million of them, ignoring 900,000 supposed void, blank and annulled ballots declared null, discarded and never included in the official totals, also never counting over 700,000 additional votes from missing precincts, denying the right to vote to many voters in strong Obrador precincts, and much more.
And for those who like their tinfoil, Deep Intelligence Index introduces the category: “Demonstration Elections”:
What do these presidential elections all have in common: Mexico, 1988, US, 2000, US, 2004, Colombia and Peru, 2006 and the just concluded Mexican election on July 2? In each case, the outcome was “arranged” and known in advance before voters went to the polls. They’re what economist and media and social critic Edward Herman calls “Demonstration Elections” - the characterization and title he gave his 1980s book analyzing and documenting sham elections in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Vietnam. Professor Herman is an expert, and although his book was written over 20 years ago, it’s clear little has changed except for the added sophistication gained since then in the ability of officials to make elections turn out the way they wish. The same fraud occurs in many countries, and Professor Herman might have included many others besides the ones he chose but had he done so he’d have had to have written a book with no end.
Elections that only appear democratic happen throughout the developing world wherever the US has a strategic interest, which these days means everywhere. But they also happen in at least some developed countries, most notably the last two US presidential elections.
It seems the same because it is the same.
UPDATE The FTE is not the final authority. In fact, the election could be annullled. Kossack Miguel:
For those of you who don’t read Spanish, the executive summary is that Eloy Fuentes Cerda, magistrado del Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF),the head of the Federal Election Tribunal stated in an interview that the IFE does not determine the winner of the presidential race, that power is solely reserved for the TEPJF. He further stated that if petitioned properly, the Tribunal could annull the election due to the observed irregularities and disputes.
This has happened in several important state elections in the past several years.
This is probably the most important news I have seen on this in the last several days. If this guy and the other judges on the Tribunal can withstand the enormous threats and bribes they will be faced with, Mexico may emerge with a truly transparent election.