Recounts support Mexico election result

[cal04]

MEXICO'S contested presidential election result giving victory to conservative candidate Felipe Calderon has not been changed by recounts and annulments at some polling stations, electoral court judges ruled.

The seven judges voted unanimously to reject most of the legal complaints by leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said there was a huge fraud at the July 2 vote.

Mr Calderon, a former energy minister from the ruling National Action Party, won the election by just 0.58 of a per centage point or 244,000 votes, the initial result showed.

The judges stopped short of formally declaring Mr Calderon the winner but said there were only marginal changes to the original results from contested polling stations.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20288868-1702,00.html

Mexico court throws out election fraud claims
http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=13313901&src=rss/worldNews

[enigma000]

1. not even a split decision n/t

[electropop]

2. LAst I heard, they were only counting a few percent

and even in that small sample, the changes were going strongly for Obrador.

[ComerPerro]

3. recounts aren't going to fix steals with machines anyway

[Wiley50]

4. I feel a Revolution coming on

Sept 16th
Mexican Independence day

Bet Bush will send in troops

Bastard!

[roamer65]

12. What troops?

[roamer65]

5. Prediction

If the Calderon "victory" is upheld, the revolt in Oaxaca state will spread to other states and the DF.

[Marr]

6. I read a story here on DU last week that said they'd found enough fraud

in just the 4% recount to flip the election. Damn- I wish I had the link handy.

[Generator]

19. Thought so too

Here's the Democracy Now account:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/24/1425237&mode=thread&tid=25

JUAN GONZALEZ: And this issue of the recount that was done, of this 9% of the ballots, it's been now, what, a couple of weeks since they completed that recount? And the political parties had observers there, so they all have their versions of what happened there. But there's no official announcement yet of these results?

MARK WEISBROT: No. And I think, again, that's deliberate, because right now we have the two versions. If you take Lopez Obrador's version, which I think is probably true, they said that Calderon lost 13,000 votes, which is about 1% of his total, and Lopez Obrador didn’t lose any. So if you look at the media reports, they say 5,000 to 7,000. But either way, that's a lot, and it's clearly going only one way. In other words, the recount showed that only one side had votes that were thrown out in the partial recount. Again, another very big reason to do a full recount and another reason, I think, why they're not releasing the results, because if everybody got to see the results of this partial recount, they might be forced -- they might have public pressure to do a full recount.


~
They aren't releasing the results of the recount. Democracy is really dead, then, in the Northern Hemisphere.

[Kickoutthejams23]

7. I hate to be the crazy guy on these boards.

But maybe just maybe now. Mr. Cauldron actually won the election....

He ran a pretty effective campaign comparing his opponent to that South American bogeyman Chavez (Say what you want but a lot South and Central American politicians are winning election by painting their more progressive opponent as "another Chavez")

Yes the vote is close and all that but the reality is chances are Cauldron received more votes. I know it isn't a good story and all but it could actually be the truth.

Just being the crazy guy here.

[elocs]

10. You could be right.

Is seems at times that too often those of us on the left go into victim mode when things don't go our way. Sometimes people chose not to actually support our side. If we scream too often "we was robbed" those who might believe us begin to tune us out to their and our loss.

[Annces]

11. Ya right!

You be wrong big time and you know it I suspect.

[roamer65]

13. Maybe, maybe not

With the level of proven fraud, (i.e. ballots found in garbage dumps, etc) no one will really ever know who truly won. With Oaxaca state in rebellion, the stage is set for a Mexican civil war.

[slackmaster]

15. You hit right on the core problem

There was proven fraud, and it's likely that enough information has been tainted or outright lost that nobody will ever be completely sure of the outcome. It seems probable to me that Calderon would have barely won a clean race, but the backlash against the fraud perpetrated by some of his supporters may have made a peaceful outcome impossible.

Welcome to DU by the way.

[slackmaster]

14. I think it's likely that Calderon actually won

The dilemma Mexico faces is whether to play it by the books and follow the letter of the law as they are now, and face the consequence of an angry mob that believes the election was stolen; or to give in to the mob demand for a full recount, with the likely outcome that Calderon will still be shown as winning but the mob finding reasons to doubt the veracity of the recount.

Either way there is going to be trouble.

[Marr]

21. Give me some examples of other South and Central American

politicians who've won legitimate elections by painting their opponent as "another Chavez". Not being combative- I honestly haven't heard of such a trend.

[Kickoutthejams23]

23. Peru and Columbia for starters. Chavez bashing was a main theme.

http://www.theipinionsjournal.com/2006/06/week-of-setbacks-for-hugo-chavezs.html Here is a link I honestly don't know the leanings of the group but I've seen multiple media reports from different sources reporting the same Chavez bogeyman phenomenon

[Annces]

8. they are keeping their fingers crossed

the liars.

[Igel]

9. Any word on whether the actual results of the recount, by precinct,

are going to be released (or have been released)?

AMLO's 200k or so votes that were wrong/found/vanished is a meaningless statement, from what I've seen, without knowing more about them, who they were for, and where they were located.

Calderon's 'minimal changes' isn't incompatible with AMLO's statement. But neither have a vested interest in details. And this is an important one.

[Rex]

16. What about the 1.5 million votes found in the trash?

Was that all just made up or did I imagine reading the story in multiple news outlets?

[slackmaster]

17. The number found in the trash was much smaller

Nobody knows how many votes got shit-canned and NOT found, how many ballot boxes were stuffed with how many votes going which way or the other.

It's a big mess. The only real solution may be a re-vote.

[Generator]

18. I feel sick to my stomach

Horrible news.

[cal04]

20. Partial Mexico recount won't erase lead

The leftist Democratic Revolution Party immediately denounced the Federal Electoral Tribunal's decision, with spokesman Gerardo Fernandez telling hundreds at protest camps in Mexico City's Zocalo plaza: "It's clear the tribunal isn't up to the task. It's preparing to impose the right's candidate."

However, the judges put off announcing a final vote tally as well as their decision on the request by leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to annul the election entirely. The court's seven judges have until Sept. 6 to declare a president-elect or annul the election.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060828/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_elections_4

[samsingh]

22. we can't trust the recounts