Mexican activists want ballots saved

[Judi Lynn]

Sept. 11, 2006, 9:51PM
Mexican activists want ballots saved
Lopez Obrador threatens to block foe's inauguration and seeks recount


By MARION LLOYD
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Foreign Service

MEXICO CITY - Less than a week after an electoral court ruled in one of Mexico's most hotly contested presidential elections ever, authorities are moving toward burning the ballots.

Mexican activists on Monday they would appeal the Federal Electoral Institute's decision to destroy the ballots.

Last week, the institute known as IFE threw out a petition by 850 scholars, journalists and ordinary citizens requesting access to the nearly 44 million ballots cast on July 2.

In a 20-page letter sent to the complainants on Thursday, the IFE argued that the ballots are not protected under the country's freedom of information laws and must be destroyed once the electoral process is over. It has scheduled the ballot burning for sometime after Dec. 1, when President-elect Felipe Calderon is due to be sworn in.But the petitioners on Monday protested the decision, which they claim was politically motivated.

"It's a very clumsy political move," said Irma Sandoval, an expert on transparency laws who is advising the petitioners. "The IFE has the historic chance to calm the suspicions held by a large share of the population."
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4179364.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. They better not try that here! Oh, wait, we don't HAVE ballots...

...in one third of the country. Nothing to burn!

And even where we do have some sort of ballot--or, as they say, "voter verified paper audit trail"--at best--at best!--99,999 times out of 100,000, no one will ever see it. Many states have no audit at all. The best states have a 1% audit--completely inadequate (and highly manipulable) in the high speed, invisible environment of Bushite-corporate controlled electronic voting-- a "voting" system imposed upon us by the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney (now indicted or resigned in bribery scandals), abetted by Bilderberg 'Democrats' like Christopher Dodd, with nearly $4 billion in boondoggle funding to bribe and entice election officials from one end of the country to the other, to purchase this crapass, insecure, insider hackable voting machinery.

They might as well burn the ballots.

And will they, in Mexico, turn this paper ballot election* debacle into an excuse to invite Diebold & brethren into Mexico's election system--as the fascists did here, using the Florida '00 punchcard controversy to make things even worse--with INVISIBLE vote "counting," run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code?

Stay tuned.


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*(The Mexican election also featured a new electronic central vote "tabulation" system, in which the fascist candidate's brother had an interest. The ballots were counted--this is where the stuffing (or emptying) occurred--the boxes of ballots were sealed and an initial count tagged on top. From that point, the ballots were never seen again. Only the tags giving the totals were checked, and only a small percentage of them. This is why the Mexican protesters were demanding a REAL recount--vote by vote. The entered the tag totals into the electronic system, and--oua la!--the fascist wins!)

[mom cat]

2. It only matters who counts the ballots!, er. computer blips.

[go west young man]

3. Gotta get rid of the evidence!

[ronnykmarshall]

4. Calderon is asking that they are saved.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2506633