5520: RE: 5513: Miami Herald - Kurzban on Haiti's Elections (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Joel Dreyfuss <jdreyfuss@attglobal.net>

It's a shame to see Ira Kurzban stoop to such specious arguments about the
situation in Haiti  after all his years of great work on behalf of my native
land..
The issue is not whether Aristide would win; that's a given. The issue isn't
even how inept the opposition has been; that it is. The issue is the law.
And while people on this list have made facile remarks comparing the U.S.
election battle with Haiti's, we're all reasonably assured that the dispute
in the U.S. will get resolved under the law. Americans may complain about
too much litigation. It's a lot better than guns and flaming necklaces.
In the case of the dispute over how votes were counted in Haiti's election:
a number of experts have used statistics to point out fairly convincingly
that the same method of discarding runners-up were NOT used in 1990. Even if
they were used, it is clear that such a method, which effectively prevents
runners-up from forcing a second round, violate the letter of the law.
The issue for Haiti is not whether Aristide is entitled to be president; the
issue is whether we can develop a culture that respects the law and doesn't
make exceptions for powerful people. The recent electoral events in Haiti
suggest we haven't made much progress in this direction.