UPDATE 1-Mexico arbiter rules out vote fraud

[Judi Lynn]

UPDATE 1-Mexico arbiter rules out vote fraud
Wed Jun 21, 2006 1:01am ET

By Alistair Bell

MEXICO CITY, June 20 (Reuters) - There is no chance of fraud in the vote count for Mexico's close-run presidential election on July 2, the head of the country's electoral authority said on Tuesday.

With candidates from the left and right running neck-and-neck after a bitter campaign, concern has grown that the loser might cry foul and plunge Mexico into political chaos at the slightest sign of vote-rigging.


But Luis Carlos Ugalde, the referee in the contest as head of the independent Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, said a repeat of an infamous presidential election in 1988 when the government was widely believed to have altered the count was impossible.

"The chance of any irregularity is equal to zero," Ugalde told Reuters.

He said a comprehensive voting list, ballot papers that could not be falsified, an efficient counting system and the presence of 1 million people chosen at random to work at ballot booths would prevent vote fraud.
(snip/...)

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2006-06-21T050112Z_01_N20184776_RTRIDST_0_MEXICO-ELECTION-VOTE-UPDATE-1-PICTURE.XML

[Up2Late]

1. Sounds like the election is going to be rigged.

Why? Because whenever someone speaks in absolutes he/she is almost always wrong.

(That's the easiest way to ace a True/False test, the questions with the absolute statements are nearly always false)

[Selatius]

2. Vote fraud? What about election fraud? Someone call the Carter Center!

I won't trust the results of this election unless international election monitors are called in to watch carefully.