Well, no doubt we need to wait till the election "expert" - Farhad Manjoo, weighs in on this.

Please explain this one away Farhad, will you?

I think Greg Palast weighed on this before the election.

On what basis can Barclay describe Clinton Curtis as questionable? He has passed a polygraph test. Tom Feeney has not. I suspect this is a planted story to prepare everyone for a let down in Mexico. Thank goodness a real reporter, Greg Palast is there. Let's hear from him.

OK, enough. Salon usually publishes decent stuff, now and then pure unadulterated crap. This is, of course, a winner. Full disclosure, I am Mexican, living in Chicago while getting a PhD (in Political Science, of all things), and in Mexico City over the summer to vote; I sort of feel qualified to feel indignant for this article. The author, whose name I don't even care to remember, understands nothing of the electoral system in Mexico which, granted, is complicated as it includes many checkpoints and safeguards manned by IFE, and mostly by the citizens who voluntarily operate the voting places and count the votes. Then there is Greene's phrase 'only the IFE can count the votes, unlike in Florida where the lawyers and the party members got involved with counting' which is wrong because even in the final count of the 'actas' or official lists of votes that are written after voting places close (accompanied by the votes themselves, locked up in their original boxes which an only be opened if legally justified) party members are present, supervising every step, and the people from IFE who count these 'actas' actually are local notables, citizens chosen by their communities to form the local IFE councils. Then again, there's the paper and crayon thing, as if using electronic voting booths was any safer... they are still paper and crayon because they are traceable and re-countable, not because Mexicans cannot fathom a touchscreen. And finally, the insinuation of cyberfraud is thus pointless because there are no electronic booths in Mexico and everything is counted and re-counted using a paper trail. Copies of which are sent to all parties to cross-check. The fact that, yes, Barclay buys (granted, pushes and fails to qualify) Marti Batres' paranoid rants explains only the fact that PRD is trying hard to delegitimize IFE (which made me regret voting for Lopez Obrador the morning after it was clear that he'd lost) and that she really does not know or understand a thing about Mexican politics. A total shame on Salon.com

Please, the voting system set up by IFE is one of the safest in the world (it makes me feel immense pride, really), by far safer that the one in the US. Would it be too much to ask from Salon to stop its patronizing stance and do its homework beyond, I don't know, the introduction to Lonely Planet Mexico? Oh yes, it really is

Did we not read an article on the web a short time ago, authored by a reliable source, alleging that, knowing that the election would be a very tight race, a group of Bush administration operatives went to Mexico early on to promote the same tactics that were carried out in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004 in order to give an edge to the conservative candidate, who is favorable to the Bush administration ?

If so, it's no wonder that the lerftist party is ready to raise a ruckus, in contrast to our craven and manipulated media who have been playing along with the Republican Party even before the 2000 election. In Mexico it could well mean bloodshed. But in the USA ? YAWN - - - .

http://www.gregpalast.com/senor-blank-o-wins-in-mexico#more-1446

http://news.google.com/news?l=a&q=trilateral-policy

http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/world/14991945.htm

http://www.soonews.ca/viewarticle.php?id=7120

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50500

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15497

http://news.google.com/news?l=a&q=NAFTA+Interstate-69

http://news.google.com/news?l=a&q=NAFTA+Interstate-35

http://www.google.com/search?l=a&q=NAFTA+Interstate-69

http://www.google.com/search?l=a&q=NAFTA+Interstate-35

http://news.google.com/news?l=a&q=Interstate-69

http://news.google.com/news?l=a&q=Interstate-35

http://www.soonews.ca/newsphotos/4884.jpg

http://www.nascocorridor.com

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15682

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/local/14904095.htm

Who are you calling questionable? I take offense to your slur against Clint Curtis. He is a brave whistleblower whose story has not been disproven. On the contrary, much of what he has stated in an affadavit is verifiable regarding overbilling at FDOT on the part of Yang Enterprises and the employment of a Chinese national who was convicted of illegally exporting missile chips to China. When it comes to vote-rigging software, and his accusation that Congressman Tom Feeney asked for this software to be fabricated, I tend to believe the honorable Clint Curtis, who passed a lie detector test.

I don't know where this information comes from. It's an independent body whose members are appointed by multi-partisan consultation. If the author has any information that contradicts this, she should present it. The entire article is very poorly informed.

I just got back from Mexico where I honed my Spanish reading the endless election coverage. I observed something that La Jornada later confirmed. When the final count was done Wednesday night, the results followed a linear pattern. To wit, with each .1% of ballots counted, Calderon went up .01% and AMLO down .01. I realized that if this continued, AMLO would fall behind once the count reached 98% and went to bed; the actual number turned out to be 97.7. I was also able to estimate the final margin accurately. I am an election junkie and have never seen results come in so evenly. La Jornada's expert claimed this to be mathematically impossible and evidence of ciberbrfrauda. However, I don't know enough about how the vote count proceeded to know if there is another explanation.