A view from abroad may be useful .......
David Wolsk
···
> Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 9:29 AM
> Subject: FWD: Democracy in America?
>
>
> > > Subject: FW: Democracy in America?
> >
> A Zimbabwe politician was quoted as saying that children should study
> > the US election event closely because it shows that election fraud
> > is not only a third world phenomenon.
> >
> > To illustrate the point, he made the following comments:
> >
> > "Imagine that we read of an election occurring anywhere in the third
> > world in which the self-declared winner was the son of the former
> > prime minister and that former prime minister was himself the former
> > head of that nation's secret police (the CIA).
> >
> > Imagine that the self-declared winner lost the popular vote but won
> > based on some old colonial holdover from the nation's pre-democracy
> > past (the electoral college).
> >
> > Imagine that the self-declared winner's 'victory' turned on disputed
> > votes cast in a province governed by his brother!
> >
> > Imagine that the poorly drafted ballots of one district, a district
> > heavily favoring the self-declared winner's opponent, led thousands
> > of voters to vote for the wrong candidate.
> >
> > Imagine that members of that nation's most despised caste, fearing
> > for their lives/livelihoods, turned out in record numbers to vote in
> > near-universal opposition to the self-declared winner's candidacy.
> >
> > Imagine that hundreds of members of that most-despised caste were
> > intercepted on their way to the polls by state police operating under
> > the authority of the self-declared winner's brother.
> >
> > Imagine that six million people voted in the disputed province and
> > that the self-declared winner's 'lead' was only 327 votes. Fewer,
> > certainly, than the vote counting machines' margin of error.
> >
> > Imagine that the self-declared winner and his political party
> > opposed a more careful by-hand inspection and re-counting of the
> > ballots in the disputed province or in its most hotly disputed
> > district.
> >
> > Imagine that the self-declared winner, himself a governor of a major
> > province, had the worst human rights record of any province in his
> > nation and actually led the nation in executions.
> >
> > Imagine that a major campaign promise of the self-declared winner
> > was to appoint like-minded human rights violators to lifetime
> > positions on the high court of that nation. None of us would deem
> > such an election to be representative of anything other than the
> > self-declared winner's will-to-power.
> >
> > All of us, I imagine, would wearily turn the page thinking that it
> > was another sad tale of pitiful pre- or anti-democracy peoples in
> > some strange, faraway elsewhere."
> > --
> >
> >
> >
>
>