On the question of blank ballots: I suspect that all voters who arrived
at
voting stations were given a complete set of voting papers for the
presidential, senate and deputy elections whether they wanted them or
not.
There may well have been people who wanted to vote for a senate or
deputy
candidate, but were undecided about who to support for president (and
who
can blame them?). Hence some ballots for president would have been left
blank.
To my mind, this explanation gives weight to the argument for excluding
the
blank ballots from the count, which would give outright victory to
Preval.
But then I'm always in favour of a quiet life.
Rob