Why the Mexican election scandal should be embarrassing to the U.S.

There has been a lot of interest as of late in Mexico's close presidential election.  Let me just say, as a disclaimer, in comparison to Near East and Southeastern Asia policy, I am not as knowledgeable about Latin America.  So, for the most part, there is no point in me even trying to put forth a somewhat educated stance on the Mexican election.

I will say, however, that the vote reminds me of something that went on in Florida nearly six years ago.  As the Guardian Unlimited newspaper reports, there are allegations that liberal voters were taken off the rolls:

As we found in Florida in 2000, my investigations team on the groundin Mexico City this week found voters in poor neighbourhoods, theleft's turf, complaining that their names were "disappeared" from thevoter rolls. ChoicePoint can't know what use the Bush crew makes of itslists. But erased registrations require us to ask, before this vote iscertified, was there a purge as there was in Florida?

Notably,ruling party operatives carried registration lists normally in thehands of elections officials only. (In Venezuela in 2004, during thespecial election to recall President Hugo Chavez, I saw his opponentsconsulting laptops with voter lists. Were these the purloined FBIfiles? The Chavez government suspects so but, victorious, won't pressthe case.)

There's more that the Mexico vote has in common withFlorida besides the heat. The ruling party's hand-picked electoralcommission counted a mere 402,000 votes more for their candidate,Felipe Calderón, over challenger Andrés Manuel López Obrador. That'snoteworthy in light of the surprise showing of candidate Señor Blank-o(the 827,000 ballots supposedly left "blank").

As I told one of my visitors to this web site via e-mail, I favored Calderon because his foreign policy was more pro-American.  The last thing we need is another leader on our doorstep that hates the United States.  But regardless of who any of us wanted to win, vote tampering on any side of any election is fraudulent and threatens democratic institutions.  Can we say for sure that the Mexican election was rigged?  Not necessarily.  The Mexican media is not as open as the press in the United States.  We may never know.

Overall though, I am not surprised that there was a voting controversy in Mexico.  There are similar scandals in other third world countries.  But when you read about those third world scandals, it is sad to think that you could even compare them to what went on in Florida.  We are the United States after all -- the shining democracy.  What happened in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004 were inexcusable.  So, in a nutshell, whenever I read about a foreign election controversy in the news, it brings back the feeling of embarrassment that I got when I was a senior in high school, looking on with my jaw dropped as the Supreme Court gave the election to Bush.
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Other blogs writing about this issue: Worldwide Sawdust, The Constant American, The Humane Rights Blog, Rain Crow Calling, Reconstitution, Lazy Iguana, A Call to Action, Cwech Blug, Daily Kos.

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[lazy iguana]

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