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Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Mexico's Nailbiter

Update:
Once the vote is official, then the legal challenges can begin. These results are consistent with the quick tally, in which the districts reporting last now reported early, giving Calderon his consistent lead in the preliminary count. What's being counted are the tally sheets for the ballot boxes. The election workers count the box and seal the box. Each party's observer gets a copy of the tally sheet and so does the official in charge. The box is only supposed to be opened and recounted if there are discrepancies. Mark in Mexico has good information and Publius Pundit is covering the election and provided this excellent link to English-language coverage of Mexican election blogging. The IFE has to make a final determination of the winner by September. If you don't read Spanish, the news is pretty much as you would expect. Calderon's lot held a very early morning victory party as they moved into the lead, and Obrador's camp was pretty silent. He is supposed to hold a press conference this morning.

99.39% counted
35.80% Calderon
35.39% Obrador
99.12% counted
35.76% Calderon
35.42% Obrador
96.85% counted
35.70% Obrador
35.49% Calderon
95.86% counted
35.80% Obrador
35.39% Calderon
Now it's 94.85% counted:
35.89% Obrador
35.30% Calderon
Who'd want to the winner of an election this close? It's going to be very hard to govern. We started with
93.77% counted:
35.99% Obrador
35.22% Calderon

Apparently the Mexican law requires them to keep counting all night. Calderon is gaining ground; apparently Mexico has red and blue states too:
Lopez Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, led pro-U.S. former energy minister Calderon by less than 1.3 percentage points on Wednesday night with returns in from 90 percent of polling stations.

But Calderon was rapidly gaining ground as results came in from north and west Mexico, his strongholds. Officials said it was still too close to declare a winner from Sunday's election.

Calderon's aides were confident the final result would confirm his victory.

Protests broke out in the capital to press home claims that Lopez Obrador was the victim of fraud in the preliminary count, and he warned electoral authorities to be thorough.
So I guess tomorrow morning in Mexico City will be very interesting. Obrador was demanding a ballot-by-ballot recount, but it seems the law does not allow that except in very defined circumstances. El Universal is carrying a a running tally, right now it's 35.99% Obrador and 35.22% Calderon with 93.77% counted. But no! Now it's 35.98% Obrador and 35.23% Calderon with 93.88% counted.

Even DU thinks Calderon is going to pull ahead, so now it's a search for ballots, a la King County. Jimmah and AlGore should be flying in with some jets loaded with lawyers any moment now.


Comments:
Deja vu, all over again.

In 2000, the dems wanted t bring in Richard Daley, of Chicago. Yup, RICHARD DALEY.

I guess 'finding' votes runs in the family.
 
Doesn't Daley the Younger have a better reputation than his father?

Anyway, this appears to have been an extraordinarily close election, compounded by the fact that there was a strong third candidate, so the winner won't even come close to 40% of the total vote.

Still, considering the average US error rate in balloting, the process seems to be running very smoothly.
 
It's still three words to conjure with:

DALEY OF CHICAGO.

In charge of vote recounting.

"Who casts the votes decide nothing. Who counts the votes decides everything."
-- Josef Stalin
 
I posted this last week

7/4/2006
El Voto de Mexico
Cancun and Puerto Vallarta, the places that 95% of Americans visit when going South of the Border, ain't Mexico. You have to either go into the countryside (almost certain death) or into the southern provences like Chiapas (again, don't go there alone). Then there are the isolated indian tribes like the Huichol who have completely recovered from the Spanish and are more numerous than they were when Cortez and the guys arrived. These tribes are a real menace because they hate everybody and every religion. Naturally, all these uneducated tribes live in poverty and are always in a state of near rebellion. All this is compounded by the "revolutionistas" who continually agitate the poor slobs.

Corn is the big deal. It is the holiest of crops (food of the gods), which used to be their main crop but is now a non-sustaining crop due to climate change (not Global Warming). Corn barely grows anywhere in Mexico any more but the commies keep telling the poor slobs that there is plenty of corn in the "norte" that the government won't let them have. This simmering cauldron of resentment and hate is always ready to explode and no amount of NAFTA or anything else will improve the lot of this ignorant horde of people.

No matter who "wins" an election there, the real problem is the uneducated indian tribes.


# posted by Howard : 7/04/2006 10:30:00 AM
 
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