4534: Further Thoughts on the Election Count Methods (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Henry F. Chip Carey <polhfc@langate.gsu.edu>

Let us assume that the same counting method was used after the first round in 1990 as in 2000. There would be a good rationale for doing this.   The CEP was in chaos and great pressure to get out hte results.  Many local elections had been cancelled as it was and they wanted to get the President inaugurated on Feb. 7, as scheduled, with the parliament in session. That means that the elections for the second round had to get ballots printed quickly.  To save time, maybe Baudell said: If all the candidates cannot get a majority out of the top six for the first three senate candadaes, then why bother to count all of the rest.  In 2000, the purpose of not counting all the ballots was not to avoid unnecessary labor that makes no difference in who qualifies for the second round, but to change the results from what would have happened in the second round if all the ballots cast in the first round were counted. I doubt very much whether the top six counting method in 1990 would have been used for those few senators (whatever was the exact number) who did get elected with a majority in the first round on Dec. 16, 1990 because they might not have qualified if all the ballots were counted.  The only honest way to know if they did get the 50% would have been to count all the balllots.  Once one has done that, there is no reason to use the top-six count.  Does CEP claim that this method was also used for Dec. 1990 for those senators who were elected in the first round?  Then, he is admitting that the CEP committed fraud in 1990.  It would be interesting to poll the nine comissioners from 1990-1991, as well as the UN OAS officiails. If not, then CEP 2000 permitted fraud for those who did qualify in 2000, not only because it violates the 2000 election law, but also because the CEP was actually NOT using  the same method as was used in 1990.  Either way, what happened in 2000 could not rationally have been based on a 1990 precedent unless it is admitted that the CEP committed fraud in 1990 for the first-round Senate victories. I
this fraud was perpetrated in 1990.  And, this discussion assumes that this counting method was used in 1990, which some CEP officials from 1990-1991 have already denied.

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