Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Carter Baker report on elections generates anger and laughter in Caracas All day in radio talk shows the news of the contents of the Carter-Baker report on elections caused hilarity, anger and spite against the former US President. I had read about it early this morning in PMBcomments, but was surprised by its absence in any of the news media today. But radio talk shows were having a ball at quoting straight from the report. This one generated anger: -Congress should pass a law requiring that all voting machines be equipped with a voter-verifiable paper audit trail and, consistent with HAVA, be fully accessible to voters with disabilities. This is especially important for direct recording electronic (DRE) machines for four reasons:(a) to increase citizens’ confidence that their vote will be counted accurately, (b) to allow for a recount, (c) to provide a backup in cases of loss of votes due to computer malfunction, and (d) to test — through a random selection of machines — whether the paper result is the same as the electronic result. While this one generated laughter: -To undertake the new responsibilities recommended by this report and to build confidence in the administration of elections, Congress and the states should reconstitute election management institutions on a nonpartisan basis to make them more independent and effective. U.S. Election Assistance Commission members and each state’s chief elections officer should be selected and be expected to act in a nonpartisan manner, and the institutions should have sufficient funding for research and training and to conduct the best elections possible. We believe the time has come to take politics as much as possible out of the institutions of election administration and to make these institutions nonpartisan. This one made people wonder if it was the same Jimmy Carter that came to Venezuela to oversee the recall vote: -States should adopt unambiguous procedures to reconcile any disparity between the electronic ballot tally and the paper ballot tally.The Commission strongly recommends that states determine well in advance of elections which will be the ballot of record. While this one led them to conclude it had to be a different guy: -State and local election authorities should publicly test all types of voting machines before, during, and after Election Day and allow public observation of zero machine counts at the start of Election Day and the machine certification process. And how about this one, where was Carter last year in August 14th.? He certainly did not have this access and neither did even the members of the Electoral Board that were not pro-Chavez. -All legitimate domestic and international election observers should be granted unrestricted access to the election process, provided that they accept election rules, do not interfere with the electoral process, and respect the secrecy of the ballot. Such observers should apply for accreditation, which should allow them to visit any polling station in any state and to view all parts of the election process, including the testing of voting equipment, the processing of absentee ballots, and the vote count. It was indeed weird to hear all these wise remarks from the same guy that certified the results of the Venezuela recall last year, without any of the above conditions being met at all. In fact NONE of the above was even closely satisfied. But that's Jimmy for you. 7:40:42 PM    comment []

A day of protests and threats against private property It was a day of protests in Venezuela today, curiously none of it organized by the so-called opposition, but by various groups with grievances against the Government. Chavez was hit hard by the protests as three different groups blocked the access to the headquarters of the Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana. Chavze went there to “hand out” Government loans to the Venalum corporation, one of the Government owned aluminum companies that is now under management by its personnel. Chavez had to be taken by helicopter to the plant as the roads around Ciudad Guayana collapsed. There were nominally four different groups protesting independently. Steel workers were protesting that they have not been paid the dividends on the shares of Sidor that they own, despite the promises by the Minister of Basic Industries that they would be paid. Separately, workers of the aluminum industry who can not work due to work related injuries also held a protest. The third group was composed of Venalum and Alcasa’s retired personnel asking for speed in the decision on an injunction they requested 40 days ago. Finally, there were protests over the problems with water supply to the homes in the area. Separately there were protests in Caracas by medical doctors against the health bill being considered by the National Assembly and in Vargas state by street vendors who were protesting mistreatment by the police. But none of this seemed to affect Chavze who gave a fiery speech, telling the Governors and Mayors to expropriate any empty lots in the cities that are not being used. Chavez said that they should stop the practice of buying urban land and letting it simply sit there in order to sell it later at a higher price. Chávez also attacked the private sector saying that those that don’t like his policies should “go to Miami” leaving their plants and machinery behind. He backed the seizure of a farm which he claims is owned by the Government while the owners claim otherwise and said he would hold his Sunday program from that farm next Sunday. He also said he had until the year 2030 to convince people of the advantages of socialism. Curiously, he suggested that he was a “new” convert to the concept of socialism, which was not clarified. 7:06:20 PM    comment []