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| Sunday, 23 January 2005 |
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Features |  |
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Love notes to democracy : Reflection of an international election observer I am not sure who the first election monitor was. I mean, the official named, election monitor. There have been those who raised questions about the legality, legitimacy, and transparency of the process. Somewhere down the line, there must have been more questions than answers, which is why someone would have got the bright idea of monitoring elections. Of course, like most things, monitoring was embraced as both a remunerative business and yet another way of endorsing legitimacy of process. The world is yet to develop the faculty of complete submission however, and we still hear cries of foul-play. Sometimes, subdued and under-the-breath, sometimes loud and clear. And sometimes, stuff is so unspeakably foul that even the most meticulously designed cannot stop the bad news from spreading around. Even in the United States of America (yes, there is a lot of tongue in my cheek). Complaints about the refereeing typically come from the losing side. True. So does this mean that the loser is deemed to be out of order, out of hand, simply because he/she lost? I don't know. What we do know is that there has not been a single election anywhere in the world where, if the losing side happened to the Uncle Sam's darling Uncle Sam did not make a statement, in grave tones, about rigging and legitimacy. Yes, free-and-fair was never an issue for the USA. Salvador Allende was not a Rooseveltian son of bitch, for example. Pinochet was! Need I say more? What is partinent is the following assertion: Yes, it is okay to cry foul, Uncle Sam has taught the world this. The important thing is that Democracy, that a divine being, that astral entity, intangible but worthy not just of worships, but worthy of fanatical reverence. Yes, Democracy is such a revered deity that its followers have to be willing to kill, maim, displace, dismember and destroy in order to build its temple. We saw this in Nicaragua, in Afghanistan, in Iraq (as we write) and probably in Cuba once Fidel Castro dies a natural death sometime in the near future. And if killing, maiming, dismembering etc is free-and-fair, then some mild criticism cannot be out of order. There was a strong odor emanating from Florida in 2000, so strong that it spread all over the world. It brought tears to the eyes of those who were naive enough to believe that the USA was a model democracy. The year 2004 is no different, and this is becoming increasingly clear as the foul air bursts through the tight containers called collective amnesia and nauseating euphoria. The fairytale is that the 2004 election was free of fraud. Sure, there was nothing like what happened in 2004. There was, however, systematic disfranchisement of voters by way of disinformation regarding the location of precincts, whipping up of fear psychosis regarding the possibility of arrest for traffic violation, non-payment of bills etc., and other forms of intimidation such as challenging voters at polling stations. Still, most people would agree, that Florida 2000 was not repeated to the letter. What happened, if the initial reports trickling out from certain states are anything to go by, is that the fraudulent operated at a different, more sophisticated level. Consider Broward Country, Florida, where the software started counting down after the number reached 32000. Consider Collier County where 128,352 votes were cast for Bush although voter turnout was 127,409. or Duval where he got 357 votes more than the number that actually voted. The same goes for Glades, Highlands, Lake, Miami Dade, Okaloosa, Orange, Oscula, Leon, Palm Beach and Volusia. In LaPort County, Indiana, a computer glitch indicated that each precinct had an identical number of registered voters, 300 each, whereas there are actually more than 79,000 registered voters! According to LaPort County Clerk, Lynne Spevak, this may have been due to a power surge something zapped it! In Mecklenburg County, there had been a significant discrepancy in the original unofficial results, there being more early votes than early voters. The culprit Computer Glitch! In Sarpy County, Nebraska, some votes are reported to have been counted twice. In Carteret County, North Carolina, more than 4,000 early votes were lost because the electronic voting system could not store the volume of votes if received. The manufacturer of the voting system had said that the units could store up to 10,500 votes. The limit was actually 3,005 votes. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, there had been an inverse relationship between voter turnout and support for Kerry. In Parms, at Precinct 6450, the turnout was 94 per cent. 40 per cent of the voters left the presidential candidate blank, according to county records. Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. (To be continued) |
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