[ale] [OT] For Aaron: preloaded election results in Honduras

[aaron]

On 2009, Jul, 19, , at 7:39 PM, Mike Harrison wrote:
> In spanish:
> http://www.abc.es/20090717/internacional-iberoamerica/decomisan- 
> varios-ordenadores-resultados-200907171753.html
> Loose english translation:
> http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?D=2009-07-18&ID=274578
>
> Not sure of the details. But the gist is: computers used in election
> tabulations look like they were preloaded with results. Hmm..
>
> As much as I like technology.. Especially Linux.
> There are times good old fashioned balloting and paper
> reporting of results up the chain sure work better.

I don't know enough about the Honduran voting systems and
processes to make informed comments about the validity of
the accusations; the article does not address itself to any
of the critical technical issues. The basic allegations seem
to be that the tabulation systems were targeted in an
upcoming referendum vote, but with the military coups the
country's constitutional democracy has been replaced by a
dictatorship and ALL voting in Honduras has been disposed
of, so the claims are spurious at best.

I'm not finding much on how the Honduran people conducted
elections before their democracy was stolen from them by
the military coups. They may well have enjoyed a legitimate
election system which included the paper ballot evidence,
chain of custody, transparency and manual audit requirements
that would thwart attempted election fraud; in short, all
the essential processes that are almost entirely absent
in U.S. elections.

According to Wikipedia, Hondurans also enjoyed the multiple
party ballot access that is heavily blockaded in America,
perhaps most aggressively here in Georgia due to laws from
the era of blatant racism designed to "keep them darkies out
of office".  In Honduras, the multiple party ballot choices
had produced enough congressional representation to be a
significant, tie breaking coalition:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Honduras
Unfortunately, that recently added Wikipedia page only provided
general info and election results; I'm not easily finding any
information on HOW their elections were conducted before the
coups dictatorship destroyed the country's constitution.

Perhaps the most reliable measure of the health of a country's
democracy is whether or not the Carter Center will agree to
monitor their elections.  The center has defined several
basic, common sense standards for free, fair and transparent
elections that must be met before a process will qualify as
one that can be audited and validated.  At this time, not one
single State or National election process in the U.S. meets
those basic standards.

I know that the Carter Center has monitored and affirmed
elections throughout the world, including Iraq and Venezuela.
My research so far is unable to confirm whether or not the
Carter Center participated in monitoring the last Honduran
election, but substantial international monitoring by
associated organizations seems to have been in place:
===
About 46 per cent of the four million registered voters
turned out at the polls, which were monitored by a total
of 114 election observers from 14 countries of the Organization
of American States along with 6,000 local observers. More than
16,000 soldiers and police officers were deployed. The OAS declared
that delays, some complaints of irregularities, and general
difficulties "did not alter the process as a whole."
===
source: <http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2139_E.htm>
(There are other election stats and factoids of interest
at this site as well.)

What the Carter Center _IS_ doing in Honduras is expressing
considerable concern in opposition to the anti-constitutional
military coups and calling for the restoration of democracy:
<http://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/honduras-statement-on- 
coup-063009.html>
<http://www.cartercenter.org/news/current_qa/honduras_071309.html>

The Q&A interview link supplies some importatn facts about
the political disagreements used as excuse for the coups,
for example:
===
During the last months of his mandate, Zelaya promoted the
referendum that had been called for last June 28, in which
the population [ed. the people] would be asked consider [ed.
vote on] the possibility of forming a Constituent assembly
so as to reform the constitution. The consultation was ruled
"illegal" by the Supreme Court of Justice and was also rejected,
since the beginning, by the opposition that alleged [ed. ALLEGED]
that the idea to reform the Constitution responded to the
interests of Zelaya to establish in the country the indefinite
reelection of the president.
===
If you don't think the Bush regime should have been forcibly
removed from office and prosecuted and exiled for all their
dictatorial violations of constitutional limits, then you
can't possibly condone the flimsy excuses behind the Honduran
coups.

Given the situation of hostile take over in Honduras, one
must call into into question any allegations of "planned
election tampering" issued against the legitimately elected
government leaders by the illegal usurpers. As usual, the
push in the U.S. corporate media has been to vilify the
legitimate democracy and promote the military dictatorship --
the simple reason being that there is much more opportunity
for U.S. multi-nationals to voraciously corpo-Rape a country's
people and steal their resources when democracy isn't in the
way.  U.S. policy will likely hold to it's fascist traditions
and follow the easy money, too -- the examples throughout
South America in the past 60 years are numerous.

The fact that conducting elections will present the potential
for voting systems to be rigged is totally irrelevant to the
fact that having elections is the best way we have yet found
to establish and protect civil liberty, freedom and justice.
The challenge is to establish election policies and processes
that are as transparent and resistant to corruption as possible.
I've been intensely focused on doing this in Georgia for over
seven years now.  I'm thinking that maybe, someday, we'll have
democracy in the U.S. and the Carter Center will agree to monitor
our elections, helping us achieve the same safeguards of our
freedom that so many third world countries enjoy.

peace
aaron