PRD Forms Commission for Defense of the Vote (Translation)

eluniversal.com.mx ^ | July 3, 2006 | Lilia Saúl & Jorge Ramos (translated by self)

[StJacques]

So reveals Leonel Cota Montaño, National President of the PRD and member of the commission, which will present inconsistencies in the PREP tomorrow

Monday, July 3, 2006, 9:48 p.m.

The "For the Good of All" coalition (PRD-PT) formed a political commission in their fight for the defense of the vote.

Leonel Cota Montaño, National President of the PRD and a member of this commission, revealed that at midday tomorrow [the commission] will make inconsistencies in the [vote count of] the Program of Preliminary Electoral Results (PREP) known.

Cota Montaño said that they are demanding that the IFE not use this count as the basis for presenting the results of the presidential election this Wednesday.

"This count is not only full of inconsistencies but of irregularities as well. The PREP does not have any capability of being used as this kind of instrument and because we know that we have a majority we are going to participate in each of the report comparisons and the count of the ballots will be requested."

Alberto Anaya, leader of the PT [Labor Party], affirmed that these actions are the first step "in the fight for the defense of the vote."

"Before these apparent irregularities, the PREP gave an account in which it was an object of manipulation and for that reason we requested that the election be transparent. The people have already pronounced themselves in favor of Lopez Obrador."

In as much, Jesus Ortega, coordinator of the Lopez Obrador campaign, commented that among some of the PREP's inconsistencies one finds 393,000 more ballots counted for the election of federal deputies than had a vote counted for President.

[StJacques]

Even though PAN won the most seats in the Mexican Senate and the most in the Chamber of Deputies; even though all the independent polling firms had Calderon as the winner; and even though the Federal Electoral Institute's preliminary count has Calderon as the winner, Lopez Obrador and the PRD are not giving up.

What I see in this piece of news that is particularly disconcerting is that a political party, the PRD, is taking on the "official" language of a government regime in forming a "Commission" -- which has the same connotation in Spanish as it does in English -- to address problems they see in the vote. I am still worried that the PRD will eventually try to work outside of the legitimate political process in Mexico and this news does nothing to calm my fears.

There are two particular statements in the above article that I find especially troubling; "because we know that we have a majority we are going to participate in each of the report comparisons" and "the people have already pronounced themselves in favor of Lopez Obrador." Official vote counts evidently mean nothing is what the PRD claims to know on its own that matters.

I feel for the PAN. I've been in their shoes after a major election myself.

[El Gato]

Things could get real interesting. A left wing revolution/uprising on our Southern border, a major escalation in the Middle East. Little Kim and his Big Missile, and renewed calls for Jihad in the rest of the Muslim world. Yes interesting times indeed.

[Paleo Conservative]

Imagine if we didn't have the electoral college in the US. It would be necessary to recount all votes cast nationwide. Every close ection would be contested. It would be easier to perpetrate fraud due to attention being spread out over the whole country rather than focused on a few states or congressional districts.

[Dane]

ObraGore following his Ameican counterpart and mentor, al gore.

How do you say "sore loser" in Spanish.

[StJacques]

I couldn't help but remember the Broward County recount as I read the comment about the 393,000 ballots that had votes for lower-level candidates and not for President.

And these could become very interesting times indeed.

[Paleo Conservative]

It wouldn't surprise me. Mexico has a very high illiteracy rate.

[Dane]

I couldn't help but remember the Broward County recount as I read the comment about the 393,000 ballots that had votes for lower-level candidates and not for President.

As in the US, some people for whatever reason do not vote for the top of the ticket and only vote in local races.

It's deja vu all over again(November 2000). Time to bring out the Johnny Carson picture.

[Dane]

It wouldn't surprise me. Mexico has a very high illiteracy rate

Or maybe those voters, about 1% of the total, didn't like any of the presidential candidates and decided not to vote for any of them.

Where does it say that one must vote for a presidential candidate.

[conservative in nyc]

Do you have any idea what "estado RP" means? Absentee ballots, maybe? Votes attributed to "estado RP" explain over half of the difference - they haven't been reported in the Presidential race. (The Estado RP votes favored the PAN in both the Senate and Deputies races, by the way).

Leaving the Estado RP vote aside, distributing the other alleged undervotes proportionately by current state voting percentages in the Presidential race would still leave Calderon ahead by .86%. And Calderon leads by .31% in the unlikely event that EVERY alleged undervote went to the PRD.

It sounds like the PRD is taking a page out of the Algore playbook. ObraGore indeed!

[La Enchiladita]

Do you have any idea what "estado RP" means?

Nope. I looked at the article to see where you got that from but did not see the term.

Thanks for keeping us updated.

[Paleo Conservative]

Is there a Spanish language version of Voting for Dummies?

[conservative in nyc]

It's not in the article. Go here. Click on "Senadores" up top, then on "Reporte Nacional por Entidad Federativa" underneath the totals. That brings up the state-by-state Senate vote. Estado RP is listed after all of the Mexican states in alphabetical order.

[conservative in nyc]

Well, you have to be a REAL dummy to spoil a paper ballot that looks like this:


There will be no hanging chads.

[La Enchiladita]

I studied that link and did not come up with a best guess.

But suddenly I wondered, could that refer to the Mexican nationals who travelled from the U.S. to vote? The "Estado RP" is distributed across all states and regions of Mexico, as would be the U.S. immigrants.

???

[conservative in nyc]

But suddenly I wondered, could that refer to the Mexican nationals who travelled from the U.S. to vote?

I don't know. I do know that it's NOT Mexicans residing and voting in the U.S. or the rest of the world - only 32,621 of those votes were tallied, which went overwhelmingly for the PAN (58%-34%).

[La Enchiladita]

No, you have to look at that category, region by region and state by state. You will see it adds up to many more votes. I'm too lazy to do an Excel thing. LOL.