Posted on 07/10/2006 10:53:35 AM PDT by Valin
Mexico is likely to weather the controversy over its photo-finish election despite the protestors that losing candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador brought into the streets on Saturday to claim the election had been stolen. Mexico's nonpartisan National Election Commission has built up a decade of credibility in running clean elections and international observers have certified the count as fair. Indeed, in its successful efforts to overcome its old reputation for corrupt vote-counting Mexico has a lot to teach the United States.
Mexico has developed an elaborate system of safeguards to prevent voter fraud. Absentee ballots, which are cast outside the view of election officials and represent the easiest way to commit fraud, are much harder to apply for than in the U.S. Voters must present a valid voter ID card with a photo and imbedded security codes. After they cast a ballot voters--just like those famously pictured in Iraq last year--also have a finger or thumb dipped in indelible purple ink to prevent them from voting again.
In the U.S. opponents of such anti-fraud measures as photo ID laws claim they will disenfranchise many voters and reduce voter turnout. But John Lott, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, notes that in the three presidential elections Mexico has conducted since the National Election Commission reformed the election laws "68% of eligible citizens have voted, compared to only 59% in the three elections prior to the rule changes." People are more likely to vote if they believe their ballot will be fairly counted.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
The author is correct that US electoral procedures are a mess. Mexico, Iraq and Afghanistan, among many others, do a much more effective and accurate job of counting the votes.
Whether the results of the election will be accepted by the losers is a cultural thing and has nothing to do with whether the election was well run.
Can anybody seriously claim that American elections are well run?
Don't laugh it off so lightly. In Mexico they require:
Photo ID's for voting, matched against photo on voter registration lists at each polling station.
Indelible ink is applied after voting, thus assuring one vote only.
Proof of citizenship is required prior to registration.
We lack all of the above.
It was, but it still makes a good rally cry for the "Hate Bush" crowd. What Gore likes to forget is how he prevented thousands of Florida military votes from being counted.
Who in your opinion is getting ripped off?
Not this freeper. I claim that Gore and Kerry received the Electoral Votes of FIVE (5) states in which the result was determined by fraud.
Just two examples: Maryland and Missouri. The DOJ sat down hard on the next elections in these two states and they both wound up solidly in the Republican column. Why couldn't that have been done in a presidential year?
Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Washington, New Mexico, California, Michigan? Fraud rules. Ever since JFK and LBJ stole Illinois and Texas from an uncomplaining Nixon (and Eisenhower) in 1960, the fraud thing has been spiralling up to massive proportions.
All of which is a round about way to agree with you.
A-frickin'-men.
Sometimes I think we are wasding our breath. Our number 1 priority should be enacting these very requirements. If they can't cheat, they can't win. In NJ, union workers from Pa. and NY are paid for election day but don't have to work. They use the day to vote in both states. Newark, Philly, and Camden with huge turnout-yeah, OK.
I think the people ripping this author are the same ones demanding picture IDs before voting in this country. Guys, I'm pretty sure this author is on our side. Read the entire article, not just the part that says Mexico does something better than the U.S.
I assume Republican voter fraud also exists, although all indications are that it is much less common.
The main reason voter fraud is difficult to address is that any attempt to deal with it results in charges of racism.
Black people are supposed to vote early and often, you know.
Part of the answer for the US, if it were truly nonpartisan.
Elections here are generally run by the local party hacks and activists. The losing side always wonders to what extent games were played. I wouldn't mind losing an election nearly as much if I could be convinced I lost according to the rules. All it would mean is that I'd have to work harder next time.
Losing due to fraud makes you feel like quitting. (Or possibly blowing something up.)
If America enacted even one of these reforms, the lefties would shout "Racist!" faster than a speeding bullet.
It is a better system but, it seems to have to same end result. Thanks ALGORE!
Read the entire article
Radical! :-)
Yet they come here with no ID, no Identity, no nothing. Gimme a break. Mexico's elections are not clean, nothing is clean in Mexico, and corruption never fixes itself. I don't doubt that Calderon cheated, and I wouldn't be surprised if M-lo was cheating out the wazoo, just didn't manufacture quite enough votes. All I know is, like I say, nothing's clean in Mexico. They're worse than they ever were, if that's possible.
I wish we took the same precautions.
I was trying to post a response to Comment #25, but I kept getting an error message. Does anyone know why? So I tried Comment #26 which works OK.
"So who do you think is getting ripped off?"
I had a long talk with this Mexican who was quite articulate and reasonably well educated (high school). He wanted to be able to pay taxes and social security, but as an illegal was not able to do so. After we discussed his pay I told him he probably did not have enough pay to need to pay the IRS, but as an independent worker using Schedule C he would have to pay 15% to Social Security and Medicare. If his boss was using him legally, his boss would have to pay 1/2 the Social Security, and deduct the other half from his pay.
So who is getting ripped off? The US workers whom the contracotor would have to hire at a reasonable wage. The American people for whom the contractor is not contributing and deducting money toward Social Security and Medicare, and the Mexican who is living a life of fear and receiving a lot less than minimum wage to work in the hot summer sun.
Regarding election fraud in various states, one joke I heard was that fraud by the Daley Machine in Chicago is probably about equal to the Republic activities in southern Illinois.
>.People are more likely to vote if they believe their ballot will be fairly counted.<<
Which is why, after the governorship was stolen in broad daylight in Washington, I no longer vote. If I vote, I am part of the problem.
>>If I vote, I am part of the problem.<<
Actually, to clarify, if I vote in a system that I KNOW is corrupt, I am part of the problem.
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