Yesterday, I walked down to the zócalo twice; once in mid-morning and again late in the afternoon. My Spanish teacher had advised her students of the probable presence of army trucks, soldiers, and federal police; but to be assured this was standard operating procedure on election day. However, all I saw were the normal transit police directing traffic and only 2 federales. From my terrace, I did watch a helicopter circle the zócalo a few times. A friend filmed a tussle re lack of ballots about the same time as my helicopter siting.
To begin to understand the Mexican electoral system, the Instituto Federal Electoral has a FAQ page, in English, where it answers, 30 Essential Questions. In addition, readers might be interested in Robert Pastor’s article, 8 things the U.S. election system could learn from Mexico’s. While I don’t agree with some of his points (his conclusions re the PRI and the issue of voter ID cards in the US; problematic given its troubling history), I think the article is worth a read. By the way, the Yo Soy 132 movement was present yesterday on the zócalo and vows to continue.
Mexican Peso Converter
I took a graduate course in Political Science last year: Democratization. In the course, we discovered that Mexico has one of the most technologically sophisticated election and voting systems in the world. They are the least likely to have fraud as a result of their identity protection and counting procedures of any country in the western hemisphere. Go Mexico!
Not convinced fraud is difficult to execute and, thus, unlikely. Here in Oaxaca, there were reports of 300 ballots found before election day that had already been filled out; as the above photos and video document, there was a shortage of ballots; also charges have been leveled of buying votes, including voters using their smart phones to photograph their marked ballots to prove they voted the “rewarding” way; AND “According to Jorge Alberto López Gallardo of the University of Texas at El Paso, the IFE created more than 19 thousand new polling stations for this election, mostly in rural areas – little monitored regions which traditionally favor the PRI – despite the fact that the population in these regions decreased by 2% (Proceso, June 24, 2012, p. 11).
By the way, one of the things I find curious about the Mexican system is that only a plurality of votes is required to elect the president — no 2nd round of voting, like the French system.
GREAT report & pictures ~~ thanks! Absolutely love the “send in the clowns” shot.
Here’s my report on the doings of the day: http://anyportinastorm.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=pictures&thread=5967&page=1
So much for lack of fraud in Mexico. Sounds like the PRI just bought their way back in to power.