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#2306: Haiti voter drive progressing despite mix-ups (fwd)
From:nozier@tradewind.net
WIRE:02/11/2000 17:23:00 ET
Haiti voter drive progressing despite mix-ups
MIAMI (Reuters) - Haiti's unprecedented drive to register four
million voters with picture identification cards has produced "very
good" turnout despite isolated violence, mix-ups and deadline woes
that still could delay upcoming elections, an advisory group said
Friday. Haiti's long-delayed legislative and municipal elections are
set for March 19 and April 30. The elections are the first in three
years in the impoverished Caribbean nation, which is struggling to
establish a stable democracy after years of dictatorships, coups and
foreign military intervention.Voter registration began two weeks behind
schedule on Jan. 24 and two-thirds of the registration offices in
Port-au-Prince have yet to open, said Karen Seiger, a senior program
officer for the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES).
By law, each registration office must be open for at least 30 days
before the election, the International Foundation for Election Systems
(IFES) said. It appears likely that registration may need to
be extended by two or three weeks," IFES, a Washington-based
group providing technical and logistic help to Haiti's elections
officials, said in a status report. Seiger told Reuters it was too
early to say whether IFES would recommend postponing the election. But
IFES said in its report that it was "better to change the election date
rather than compromise the integrity of the process." Haiti adopted the
laminated photo cards to deter voting fraud. The card system uses
Polaroid technology and does not require electricity, important because
electric
service is patchy in parts of rural Haiti. The system was designed to
be user friendly in a country where at least half the population is
illiterate. By Feb. 4 -- 11 days after registration began -- more
than 900,000 people had received their voter ID cards, about 22.5
percent of those expected to register, IFES said. "There have been some
isolated instances of violence in which the registration materials were
destroyed, but the process is going smoothly and peacefully in
the majority of the registration sites that have opened," IFES said.
Since early November, there have been 48 election-related "incidents"
ranging from attacks on registration offices to destruction of
registration materials, and police have made 28 arrests, IFES said.
Some of the incidents were spurred by allegations of partisanship
among the office workers.In some cases, no materials or the wrong
materials were sent to the offices. In other cases, inadequate
training and human error spoiled the cards, though that has tapered
off, IFES said. Haiti's Provisional Election Council, which oversees
the registration and remains committed "to organize free and fair
elections," is working to improve distribution of registration
materials and to get all 3,480 registration offices up and running, the
report said. Police have arrested several people who registered
more than once, and radio stations have been publicizing the penalty
for the infraction -- 15 to 25 days in prison.
The candidate registration list includes 29,306 candidates for the
Senate, Chamber of Deputies and local government councils.