Posted at 11:47 a.m. PST Wednesday, November 8, 2000

Mexican cynics smell something rotten in U.S. vote MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexicans Wednesday smelled something rotten in the still-undecided U.S. presidential race.

With the world's eyes focused on a recount in the state of Florida that will decide whether Republican George W. Bush or Democrat Al Gore is the next U.S. president, Mexican cynics accustomed to charges of voter fraud searched for signs of irregularities.

``In this photo finish ... something bad is going on in Florida,'' said Pedro Ferriz, a commentator for Imagen radio in Mexico City.

Other local commentators and conspiracy theorists drew parallels between the vote count in Florida and past election shenanigans that helped maintain Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in power for seven decades.

Opposition parties long alleged that the PRI, which lost its first presidential election ever last July, stuffed boxes with ballots cast by citizens long dead but still registered, among other underhanded tactics.

Mexicans Wednesday quickly latched on to the fact that Florida's governor is Bush's brother, Jeb.

At least one local radio dubbed Jeb Bush the ``awkward brother,'' the tag used for the brother of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas, whose 1988 election victory was sealed only after a government-run computer system tallying the vote ``crashed'' when early results showed an opposition candidate ahead.

Salinas' brother Raul is now serving 27 years in jail for masterminding a 1994 political assassination and is also facing charges of embezzling millions of dollars, although he was never accused of vote meddling.

Most Mexican newspapers Wednesday either proclaimed Bush the winner or declared the race too close to call, but the daily Milenio played up a more enticing angle in its banner headline: ``Fraud suspected in the U.S.''

Indeed, there were also reports of election irregularities in Florida and misleading ballots that flummoxed some elderly voters.

Some in Mexico, however, were amazed at how calm their northern neighbors were taking things.

``Over there the winner didn't need fraud to win and the loser didn't go out and block roadways,'' the political cartoonist known as Magu wrote in the Mexico City daily La Jornada. ``How boring.''

http://www0.mercurycenter.com/breaking/docs/029931.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), November 08, 2000

Answers

I think the Democrats learned well from studying past Mexican elections.

-- Uncle Fred (dogboy45@bigfoot.com), November 09, 2000.

When 6 precincts' ballots are impounded because the Dems ran homeless people around to vote 6 times in all different precincts, yes, there was a fraud problem all right. Now Fl. Rep Wexler is making all kinds of diversionary noise about improper ballot printing which made many Gore-intended voters to mistakenly vote for Buchannan. Too much.

I wonder if those homeless people changed their names at every voting station. If so, will be hard to prove. (They all gave addresses of a homeless shelter as their residence.)

-- JackW (jpayne@webtv.net), November 09, 2000.

Welcome, citizens, to the Banana Republic of the United States.

The voter fraud in this election was so massive that I wonder if we will ever know what the total popular vote for president was.

-- RogerT (rogerT@c-zone.net), November 09, 2000.

I hear the Democrats even invaded the nursing homes, trying to get the Alzheimers' vote. They reportedly ran bus loads of people, feeble, from all sorts of ailments, to the polls.

-- R2D2 (r2d2@earthend.net), November 09, 2000.

I wonder how the Dems managed to steal Wisconsin and Iowa. Real late, five hours or more after the polls closed, with Bush leading slightly, suddenly came a surge of Gore votes - from Repubican strongholds - that propelled him to wins in those states.

Quite a trick.

-- Billiver (billiver@aol.com), November 09, 2000.

Oh, I see: we no longer have Commies under the beds, so Democrats are the new bogeymen?

Don't blame me, I voted for Hagelin. I don't want *either* Dems or GOPs any more. Neither one is good enough, much less "good."

Hmm. Four years to get a Third Party revolution going ....

But, trying to be a *bit* on-topic: considering all the testing glitches in Scotland, DMV glitches, and whatnot, I'm just surprised there was not more mayhem. One of the poll workers in my state (WV) said that there had been voter registration problems, wherein the Dept of Motor Vehicles had given *some* drivers the forms to register to vote while getting a driver's license, but not all; she asked me, "Did you think you had registered when you got your license?" and I said yes, but it was a couple of years ago and I had forgotten the details.

So I have to amend my earlier claim: Don't blame me, I voted for Hagelin -- maybe!

-- L. Hunter Cassells (melllyrn@nist.gov), November 09, 2000.