"WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' RECOUNT" - Greg Palast

Mexico's Lesson In The Dangers Of The Paper Ballot

By Greg Palast
for The Guardian, Comment is Free
Monday August 7, 2006

In the six years since I first began investigating the burglary ring we call "elections" in America, a new Voting Reform industry has grown up. That's good. What's worrisome is that most of the effort is focused on preventing the installation of computer voting machines. Paper ballots, we're told, will save our democracy.

Well, forget it. Over the weekend, Mexico's ruling party showed how you can rustle an election even with the entire population using the world's easiest paper ballot.

On Saturday, Mexico's electoral tribunal, known as the "TRIFE" (say "tree-fay") ordered a re-count of the ballots from the suspect July 2 vote for president. Well, not quite a recount as in "count all the ballots" -- but a review of just 9% of the nation's 130,000 precincts.

The "9% solution" was the TRIFE's ham-fisted attempt to chill out the several hundred thousand protesting supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador who had gathered in the capital and blocked its main Avenue. Lopez Obrador, the Leftist challenger known by his initials AMLO, supposedly lost the presidential vote by just one half of one percent of the vote.

I say "supposedly" lost because, while George Bush congratulated his buddy Felipe Calderon on his victory, the evidence I saw on the ground in Mexico City fairly shrieks that the real winner was challenger AMLO.

President Bush should consider some inconvenient truths about the Mexican vote count:

First: The exit poll of 80,000 voters by the Instituto de Mercadotecnia y Opinion showed that AMLO bested Calderon by 35.1% to 34.0%.

Second: The precinct-by-precinct returns were quite otherworldly. I used to teach statistics and what I saw in Mexico would have stumped my brightest students.

Here's the conundrum: The nation's tens of thousands of polling stations report to the capital in random order after the polls close. Therefore, statistically, you'd expect the results to remain roughly unchanged as vote totals come in. As expected, AMLO was ahead of the right-wing candidate Calderon all night by an unchanging margin -- until after midnight. Suddenly, precincts began reporting wins for Calderon of five to one, the ten to one, then as polling nearly ended, of one-hundred to one.

How odd. I checked my concerns with Professor Victor Romero of Mexico's National University who concluded that the reported results must have been a "miracle." As he put it, a "religious event," but a statistical impossibility. There were two explanations, said the professor: either the Lord was fixing the outcome or operatives of the ruling party were cranking in a massive number of ballots when they realized their man was about to lose.

How could they do it? "Easy pea-sy," as my kids would say. In Mexico, the choices for president are on their own ballot with no other offices listed. Those who don't want to vote for President just discard the ballot. There is no real ballot security. In areas without reliable opposition observers (about a third of the nation), anyone can stuff ballots into the loosely-guarded cardboard boxes. (AMLO showed a tape of one of these ballot-stuffing operations caught in the act.)

It's also absurdly easy to remove paper ballots, disqualify them or simply mark them "nulo" ("null," unreadable).

The TRIFE, the official electoral centurions, rejected AMLO's request to review those precincts that reported the miracle numbers. Nor would the tribunal open and count the nearly one million "null" votes -- allegedly "uncountable" votes which totaled four times Calderon's putative plurality.

Mexico's paper ballot, I would note, is the model of clarity -- with large images of each party which need only be crossed through. The ruling party would have us believe that a million voters waited in line, took a ballot, made no mark, then deliberately folded the ballot and placed it in the ballot box, pretending they'd voted. Maybe, as in Florida in 2000, those "unreadable" ballots were quite readable. Indeed, the few boxes re-counted showed the "null" ballots marked for AMLO. The Tribunal chose to check no further.

The only precincts the TRIFE ordered re-counted are those where the tally sheets literally don't tally -- precincts in which the arithmetic is off. They refuse even to investigate those precincts where ballot boxes were found in city dumps.

There are other "miracles" which the TRIFE chose to ignore: a weirdly low turnout of only 44% in the state where Lopez Obrador is most popular, Guerrero (Acapulco), compared to turnouts of over 60% elsewhere. The votes didn't vanish, the ruling party explained, rather the challenger's supporters, confident of victory, did not bother to vote. Confident ... in Mexico?

In other words, despite the right to paper ballots, the election was fiddled, finagled and fixed.

Does this mean US activists should give up on the fight for paper ballots and give in to robo-voting, computerized democracy in a box. Hell, no! Lopez Obrador has put hundreds of thousands in the street week after week demanding, "vota por vota" -- recount every vote. But AMLO's supporters can only demand a re-count because the paper ballot makes a recount possible. Were Mexico's elections held on a Diebold special, there would be no way to recount the electrons floating in cyberspace.

Paper ballots make democracy possible, but hardly guarantee it. "Null" votes, not voters, have chosen Mexico's president. The only other nation I know of with such a poisonously high percentage of "null" votes is the "Estados Unidos," the USA.

And just as in Mexico, the "null" vote, the trashed, spoiled, rejected ballots, overrode the voters' choice, so it was north of the Rio Grande in 2000 and 2004. Ballot spoilage, not computer manipulation, stole Ohio and Florida in those elections -- and will steal Colorado and New Mexico in the 2008 election.

In other words, my fellow gringo activists, we'd better stop fixating on laptop legerdemain and pledge our lives and fortunes to stopping the games played with registration rolls, provisional ballots, absentee ballots, voter ID demands and the less glamorous, yet horribly effective, methods used to suppress, invalidate and otherwise ambush the vote.

*****

Greg Palast is the author of the just-released New York Times bestseller, "ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War." Go to www.GregPalast.com.
See Palast's July 12 investigation of the Mexican election on Democracy Now!

detention centers finished? I bet Palast's cell already has his name above the door.

:scared:

I wouldn't put anything past LIEberman.

paper ballots except for absentee ballots.

eom

stolen elections in 'Armed Madhouse'!

odd results that don't match what such things as exit polling. Look for similar "odd results" in various primaries and especially in the general election.

control of the vote count by Bushite corporations, we can NEVER get enough traction in the political system to address other abuses.

Palast can be brilliant, but his inner smartass sometimes leads him astray. He could have made the point about the OTHER dangers of fascist ballot box stuffing and vote suppression without kicking the anti-e-voting movement in the stomach just as it's gathering steam.

Why did Kenneth Blackwell feel immunity from the law, in suppressing poor, black and student votes in Ohio? The answer is obvious. With Diebold and ES&S "trade secret" proprietary vote tabulation shaving votes from Kerry in dozens of other states, he knew FOR CERTAIN that Bush, a Bush A.G. and the Diebold Congress would be in charge when it was over.

E-voting is the LATEST, THE FINAL, THE ULTIMATE fascist vote stealing scheme. It trumps all others. It will make all others unnecessary. But as the objections to the Bush Cartel's fascist program grow--as they are now growing (30% to 35% approval rating for over a year now--they can't get out of their basement)--and as people get onto the e-voting scam, and go after these election theft machines, the fascists know they will need backup plans, thus the central electronic voter databases, purge programs, voter ID and other diabolical schemes. But e-voting is the FOUNDATION of their current power. It is the Bastille that we must storm, in order to break their power. It's as if Palast were standing in the crowd of revolutionaries surging toward that hated jail, and crying, "No, no, take Marie Antoinette's bakery!"

And some people will follow him, because he's Greg Palast. And they'll feast on cake for a day, and the revolution will fail.

That's the danger anyway. Wrong emphasis, Greg! E-voting is the CORE of Bushite power!

Also, you MUST focus people. You can't just say, "Everything is wrong." You have to focus people on, a) what is MOST wrong, or b) on what they can GET at.

The latter is VERY important. What they can GET at. In this case, a system that can steal MILLIONS of votes, invisibly, by just a couple of operatives (insider hackers), leaving no trace. And there they sit--these expensive, shiny, new election theft machines, whereby people are conned into "voting" their own demise.

The Absentee Ballot Voting protest is the answer. Boycott the machines! Massive AB voting. Citizen rebellion. Vote of no confidence in the rigged machines. Send election officials MOUNTAINS of paper ballots to deal with. Panic the election theft industry. Create a crisis. FORCE reform. It's easy. Everybody can do it. Turn your vote into a PROTEST.

Bust the Machines--Vote Absentee!

-----------

Note: AB voting is not "safe," and it will NOT result in accurate counts this fall. But if enough people do it (and many are--it's up to 50% in Los Angeles)--we can bring this rigged system to its knees. And that's where we want election officials to be--on their knees before the voters they are supposed to be serving!

Does this mean US activists should give up on the fight for paper ballots and give in to robo-voting, computerized democracy in a box. Hell, no! Lopez Obrador has put hundreds of thousands in the street week after week demanding, "vota por vota" -- recount every vote. But AMLO's supporters can only demand a re-count because the paper ballot makes a recount possible. Were Mexico's elections held on a Diebold special, there would be no way to recount the electrons floating in cyberspace.

:hi:

:hi:

are so hot about e-voting. But I think he doesn't get--or doesn't fully get, or doesn't express--how diabolical it is. He also doesn't seem to get HOW IMPORTANT IT IS, in the bigger revolutionary picture, that U.S. voters rebel against this e-voting election theft system. We've got to start SOMEWHERE. This is the worst of the worst. And this is where and how the revolution is going to happen HERE. Or it COULD be. It's so egregious!

beginning. We MUST have them but we also MUST NOT BECOME COMPLACENT if/when we get them because these thieves will use a plethora of maneuvers to lie, cheat and steal the election.

problem. They (those who thwart our elections) have a multi-pronged strategy including machines, purging voters by race, class, party, challenging legal votes, which become provisional votes, which are not counted, and many other tactics. We need paper ballots so we have proof and can recount. But they are systematically not recounting, and when recounting, not doing it properly. All of these tactics are one. Each is as illegal as the next.
Great article by greg palast, as always!

Thanks for the giggle!

ware....

? (probably a famous philosopher?)

Way off, but not that bad. :rofl:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=445287&mesg_id=445302

you will see why machines are only a small (well, not small...) portion of the problem.

solution. not even partial. We have less of a chance of verifying absentee votes than even votes on a diebold tsx with a paper trail. There is no accounting for absentee ballots at all. here in LA county, they are placed into a special room together with the ripped ballots and provisional ballots. That room is rpivate, not part of the regular counting site, and noone knows who or what happens in there. just like the diebold central tabulator.
So please do not think that voting absentee will help you in any way.

Canada has a secure, transparent system of paper ballots, secure lock boxes, and hand counts in the presence of "scrutineers" from each party.

That's the way to go.

conduct a proper handcount".

PB

:-)

insecure paper ballot system. They stuffed the ballot boxes (or emptied them), sealed them up, reported false totals and then the electronic tabulation system--which Calderon's brother had a hand in--did the rest. What Lopez Obrador and the millions of disenfranchised Mexican voters want is to get into those sealed boxes to show that the numbers don't add up.

Re: Connecticut. Does anybody know if they have CENTRAL ELECTRONIC TABULATORS? If so, then we may see a situation similar to that in Mexico.

Re: Absentee Ballots. It's a PROTEST. It's not a SOLUTION. Boycott the MACHINES! Bring the electronic system DOWN! THEN we have leverage. I don't care if the mountain of Absentee Ballots that they pile in a back room gets as high as Mount Everest. In fact, that's the point. If it gets up to, say, 60% to 70% (all the anti-Bush votes), it is a GIGANTIC EMBARRASSMENT and they CAN'T IGNORE IT ANY MORE!

The Absentee Ballot protest is a convergence of voter discontent and distrust, rising citizen consciousness of the rigged system, exposure of corrupt election officials, corrupt corporations and their vile "trade secret" proprietary programming scan, and massive opposition to Bush and his war and everything the Diebold Congress has done (and hasn't done). I keep repeating: It WILL not result in accurate vote counts in November, but it CAN bring this rigged electronic system to its knees. If nobody will vote on their goddamned machines, THEN what do they do?

AB voting is a REJECTION of compromise. It is a REJECTION of "paper trails" and all the electronic gobble-de-gook that goes with them. It is a rejection of secrecy and corporate control.

Transparent elections are very simple. People vote, and you count the votes in public view. That's what AB voters are ASKING FOR. SIMPLICITY! TRANSPARENCY! Throw all these "experts" and "professionals" out on their ears. And if AB voting gets big enough, the machines are made obsolete, the "experts" and "professionals" are made obsolete, and we're back to HAND COUNTED PAPER BALLOTS. Remove the MONEY. Remove the COMPLICATION. And COUNT the bloody ballots. And if you have 50 million people voting by Absentee Ballot for these reasons, they are going to be VERY INTERESTED in what officials DO with those ballots. It's a convergence of consciousness, protest and monkey-wrenching.

It INVOLVES people. It's an ACTIVE vote, not a passive button pushing.

I've noticed a syndrome among election reformers--they start talking just like Connie McCormack. The "expert"--with a certain smugness about the non-experts (the stupid citizens). They ACCEPT the compromised terms of the debate. It comes from being too goddamned smart. You're onto these fuckers and you want to beat them on their own terms. But you can LOSE the heart of the matter, when you get into a tangle with corrupt "professionals." They drag you onto their turf, where scamming the voters is a highly sophisticated and esoteric game.

We shouldn't be asking for paper trails. We should be taking a hammer to these machines. But that could get you arrested by Fatherland Security and whisked to some eastern Europe torture dungeon. A big, massive AB voting protest--sending them MOUNTAINS of paper ballots--is the next best thing to smashing the machines to pieces. DON'T VOTE ON THEIR GODDAMNED, SECRETLY PROGRAMMED MACHINES!

The Montgomery bus boycotters didn't smash and burn the busses. They just BOYCOTTED them. They hit 'em in the pocketbook! If Connie McCormack can't run millions of dollars through her fingers, for electronic voting systems, she HAS NO POWER. If nobody will vote on Diebold and other election theft machines, THEY have no power.

The AB voting protest is a way to DISEMPOWER the election thieves--AND to gain power for the election reformers!

--------------------------------

Let me give you another example. A coalition of the poor and middle class in Argentina--who had been hard hit by World Bank/IMF policies--took tiny hammers and went all round Buenos Aires, breaking every ATM display window at every bank.

Did that accomplish anything in the short term? No! All it did was inconvenience a whole lot of people just like them--in the short term. In the long term, it demonstrated the enormous discontent of the citizenry with the World Bank/IMF-collusive government, it demonstrated the POWER of that massive discontent, and it brought that government DOWN!

Argentina is now FREE of the World Bank/IMF!

Absentee ballot voting is just as useless as breaking ATM windows--in the short term. But in the LONG TERM, beyond November? If 60%, 70%, 80% of the voters choose Absentee PAPER BALLOTS, and flood the system with them?

It creates a CRISIS for the election theft industry. A CRISIS is what we want. A CRISIS is an opportunity for reform. We're dealing with a highly corrupt system that was speedily entrenched (by the $4 billion infused into the system by the Anthrax Congress). How to BUST IT OPEN--FAST?

That's what the AB voting protest is: A way to bust this election theft system NOW.

And when you do that--when you show your power, and bust ONE of their systems--you've got a REVOLUTION IN PROGRESS. It ripples through ALL the clogged up fascist systems and creates the conditions for change.

advance paper ballot voting (such as we have here in Kansas) is at best a dubious solution. Sometimes those ballots are not counted until after everything else, and only then if there's reason to think those ballots will change the results, Which is what happened in Ohio two years ago.

Here in Kansas the advance ballots are counted first. All it will take is an election result the Republican legislature doesn't like and they'll pass a law changing that.

What we really need in this country is to have leaders who are willing to encourage their supporters to hold massive demonstrations when it appears an election is stolen. Sadly, our fearless leaders advise their supporters to knuckle under and go along with the stealing of the election.

We have a long way to go to reclaim Democracy in this country.

or absentee ballots are ever counted. If Dems vote that way it will look like a land slide for the Repub.