From magbana's election blog: Credentials to stop spread of 200 observers from Guatemala

[Judi Lynn]

From CISPES 2009 Salvadoran Elections Blog:
Credentials to stop spread of 200 observers from Guatemala

March 15, 2009

Saturday night the presiding judge of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of El Salvador suspended credentials to the extent of 200 observers to monitor the Guatemalan transparency of the elections. In this regard, Judge of the TSE Siilvia Cartagena, puzzling said the reasons for which the presiding judge suspended the extension of accreditation to these while the youth of the ruling party ARENA were accredited as suitable house vote, which is a sign of anomalies.

The Nobel Peace Prize in Guatemala, Rigoberta Menchú, expressed regret and said "We are here to verify the election process and enforce the will of the people, change, hope you all pass in peace."

Reported in private media campaign
For its part, the official candidate of the FMLN, Mauricio Funes, reported to the missions of the OAS the use of media, including some radio stations owned by Salvadoran President to campaign at a time when doing so is prohibited by election law.

Original page, in Spanish:
http://noticias.com.gt/internacionales/20090315-detienen-extension-credenciales-200-observadores-guatemala.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sabotage of ballots at Estadio Flor Blanca Voting Center
1:41 pm

The room at Estadio Flor Blanca where the center’s extra ballots are being stored is full of water. The boxes of ballots are stacked on the ground and are all wet now. The police officer guarding this room claims to not know how this happened.

Estadio Flor Blanca is the Voting Center where Salvadorans who got their ID cards (DUIs) in the US are assigned to vote. The voting list for the center contains almost 50,000 names and their are 10 tables at the center. In order to avoid the tables having 5,000 ballots sitting at the table, the TSE decided tables would only have 500 ballots at a time and the rest would be stored in a guarded room and distributed as needed. As of now, only 90 people have shown up to vote in this center.

http://latinamericanmusings.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/the-el-salvador-election-news-feed/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Massive vote, massive presence of police and armed forces, and political propaganda
1:28 pm (CISPES)

As the Election Day continues to develop, a massive turnout of voters is being observed. By 9 AM, 750 of the 4,700 registered voters had already voted in Jutiapa Cabañas and many tables had lines of up to 50 people. Both Presidential candidates (Mauricio Funes of the FMLN and Rodrigo Avila of ARENA) have already voted at their respective centers.

Reports are also being received that there is a huge presence of police and armed forces at voting centers, particularly in the departments of San Vicente and Chalatenango.

Observers and citizens are making denouncements that the ARENA party is passing out political propaganda including flyers, shirts, and stickers within 100 meters of the voting centers. This is illegal not only because it is within 100 meters of centers, but also because last Wednesday was the last day to distribute political propaganda.

http://latinamericanmusings.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/the-el-salvador-election-news-feed/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Foreign intervention in the Salvadorian election process on behalf of people linked to Venezuelan right-wing groups
1:25 pm (Elsalvador2009president’s Blog)

Venezuelans opposing President Hugo Chavez have been in the Salvadorian territory promoted by authorities of the Salvadorian Supreme Electoral Tribune (known by the acronym in Spanish TSE) and the ARENA party. These Venezuelans have been camouflaged as representatives of Salvadorian civic organizations and electoral technicians.

On Friday March 13 between 1pm and 5pm: A citizen of Venezuelan nationality, Gustavo Reyes Zumeta, was responsible for giving the explanation on the results broadcast process for the Presidential electoral process.

The Official program of the Salvadorian Supreme Electoral Tribune states the following:blockquote] Electoral technological presentation for chiefs of missions and official guests of the TSE by the company UNIVERSAL IDENTIFICATION SOLUTION on the broadcast of electoral results.There is no explanation of how and why the aforementioned company was selected to have this crucial role of broadcasting the electoral results for this Presidential Election. This situation alerts us on the potential of possible deficiencies of electoral results.

http://latinamericanmusings.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/the-el-salvador-election-news-feed/

[magbana]

1. Glad you like the blog, but it is not mine . . .

I just tripped over it earlier today and thought some of the folks on the Latam list might like it. I'm sure this is the tip of the iceberg and that tomorrow will reveal what the gusanos (maybe escualidos is better)_since they have brought over their "Venezuela crew" to help out.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Whooops! I just leaped to that conclusion. Thanks for the link, anyway. It's a good one.

The ARENA people were all pointing at Venezuela, claiming Hugo Chavez was going to meddle in their election. Who the #### would have been expecting the Venezuela fascists to show up!

As _{George W. Bush} would say, "Fool me once, shame on me, fool me again, uh, uh, uh, it means you can't get fooled again."

[EFerrari]

4. magbana: does "escualido" have a special meaning besides

the one in the dictionary?

[magbana]

15. As far as I know, escaulido (defined as filthy or dirty) amounts

to "scum."

[EFerrari]

16. So, squalid. Okay! I just wanted to make sure I was catching

what it meant in the idiom. Thank you. :)

[Peace Patriot]

3. So they kicked out Rigoberta Menchú, and brought in the Venezuelan fascists.

That about says it, for ARENA party pending or in-progress foul play.

Anything with a name like "Universal Identification Solution" is to be distrusted. This seems to be another irregularity--symptom of ARENA entrenched, corrupt power--an unknown tech company shows up. And you gotta wonder if "Universal Identification Solution" has any connection to that electronic tabulation corp that brought in a highly suspect, late-at-night, 0.05% 'victory' for the rightwinger in Mexico in 2005.

A number of things have surprised me, after carefully following elections and election monitor behavior in Venezuela and other South American countries, that point here to poor control of the election monitoring groups in setting up the rules. In Venezuela, when the rightwing tried to pull off illegal, last-minute advertising, the election commission immediately shut them down. Those were the rules. They were enforced. Venezuela has a scrupulous, very transparent system, after nearly a decade of work with international monitors. However, it's an unfair comparison. El Salvador is where Venezuela was in 1998--long term, entrenched, rightwing power, and, as night follows from day, vast corruption, especially electoral corruption. It's an uphill battle for El Salvador. One good sign is the big turnout--needed to overcome the fraud. But if the fraud is going to be done electronically, in the wee small hours tonight, there isn't much recourse. And the election monitors do not sound strong or influential. This is no doubt why they banned Rigoberta Menchu. She would not bow to any pressure.

Thanks for the detailed report from this blog. I appreciate it. It's good to know what the on-the-ground conditions are.

[Peace Patriot]

5. 70% turnout! That's Venezuela level participation, and characteristic of all the other

leftist victories in Latin America. It was only 54% in El Salvador's last election (the midterms in January), a huge jump in voting. (The low turnout midterms produced a fair amount of victories for the FMLN, better than 50/50, as I recall, but they lost the mayoralty of San Salvador. 70% turnout points to victory for the FMLN presidential candidate.)

That's the good news. The bad news--or maybe bad news: Re the report that one area has lost electricity, and the returns will be slow because they are voting "digitally." I don't know any other details of El Salvador's voting system, except that paper ballots have been discussed (one batch that got wet in a flooded basement, etc.), which means either that some areas are voting electronically, and others on real ballots, or that all or some are voting electronically with paper ballot backup (probably scanners). No paper trail electronic voting is fraudulent on its face. It is not verifiable. But optiscan voting can also be rigged, depending on the audit (handcount of the ballots to check against machine totals). Central electronic tabulators are also a vulnerability--as we saw in Mexico.

The only honest electronic system I know of is Venezuela's, which uses OPEN SOURCE programming code--code belonging to the public, which anyone may review--and which conducts a whopping 55% handcount to check for machine fraud, more than five times the minimum audit needed to detect fraud. (In the US, we use 'TRADE SECRET' code, owned and controlled by private Bushwhack corporations, and do a ZERO audit in half the states, and only 1% in the others.)

But the thing about electronic fraud is that a huge turnout like this--70%--can defeat it. The fraudulent programmers have to set up the code that will falsely distribute the votes ahead of time, or have access to the machines during voting, or do the switched votes when the data is all dumped into a central tabulator, if there is no careful checking of totals at the local voting station level. A big turnout can defeat these fraudulent programs, depending on how sophisticated they are. And of course exit polls--if they are honest --will point to electronic fraud if it occurs, and the bigger the number of leftist votes, and thus the bigger the discrepancy, the better, for exit poll detection.

I don't know if they're doing exit polls, or who's doing them.

I just found out from Latin American Musings that the two main election monitoring groups are the EU and the OAS. Both probably failed in Mexico, in the face of sophisticated, late night electronic fraud (and Bushwhack pressure? --the Bushwhacks wanted Calderon to privatize Mexico's oil). In current reports, the monitors seem to be doing pretty well at monitoring foreigners trying to vote and other problems.

[Peace Patriot]

6. ARENA member slugs an international election monitor--a good sign!

Another shows a gun. Another threatens to beat an international monitor up and runs away. Sounds like the election monitors are doing their job, that El Salvadorans are doing their job--electing Funes--and ARENA members are getting short-tempered, testy and bullyish, in anticipation of their unprecedented defeat.

"As Election Day comes to an end, ARENA activists exhibit aggression"
6:28 pm (CISPES)
found at Latin American Musings

-----

Lord Almighty, are the days of thugs winning in El Salvador finally over?!

-----

But I'm still worried about this, and "Universal Identification Solution"...

The report on the electrical outage was from LAM:

"Voices has just learned that the city of Apopa has been without electricity all day. Because votes are tallied and submitted digitally, this could slow the process when the polls close."

http://latinamericanmusings.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/the-el-salvador-election-news-feed/

-----

[Peace Patriot]

8. Another good sign--most of the polling stations opened on time.

This was apparently a problem back in January--which has been fixed.

I'm reading quickly through several blogs, CISPES and others...

The polls are now closed, and I've read that, a) what happens now is counting of the ballots at the polling stations--this is a good sign, as to honest counting--but I don't know how universal it is (how widespread is electronic voting, which can mean taking vote counting away from the precinct, or internal to machines that no one can see?), and b) no major incidents--an orderly, peaceful day, with a huge voter turnout.

[EFerrari]

9. I heard a report on Ch 21 that some polling places were NOT

located where the people where directed to go. I'm not sure but believe this was in San Salvador.

[Peace Patriot]

10. Polls closed! This post clears up the business about electronic voting.

They count paper ballots at the precinct level, THEN the results are transmitted digitally, to the election commission, I guess (TSE). And the electrical outages only mean that the digitial transmission of results will be delayed. But there have been 3 more outages, and Voices is worried about the opportunity for fraud with delayed reporting.

-----------------------------------



Polls are Closed!
March 15, 2009 by voicesfromelsalvador

Observers throughout the country are reporting massive participation in the elections. By 4pm, with an hour until the polls close, a source in Soyapango stated that they had observed a participation of 60%.

Early exit polling has shown Funes up by a significant margin. However, these results are preliminary, and carry a large margin of error. A representative of FESPAD stated that by their estimates the winning candidate needs a margin of victory of at least 90,000 votes to be confident that the outcome was not influenced by fraud.

Irregularities

In addition to the power outage in Apopa for most of the day, electricity went out at 3 voting centers in Soyapango at 4pm. Because the results must be transmitted digitally, these outages have worrisome implications for the processing and announcement of the final results. Any delays to the announcement of victory will likely heighten tensions.

FESPAD (the Foundation for the Application of Law) stated that they are receiving a fewer total number of complaints of logistical problems with the electoral process than in January. However, a representative from FESPAD said that the complaints they are receiving are more serious than in January.

The majority of irregularities reported to FESPAD fall into three categories:

1) Influencing voters with t-shirts, inappropriate campaigning, food, or money

2) Obstruction of voting; for example, a business reportedly did not let its workers vote

3) Large concentrations of people (suspicious), ARENA is claiming that they are people working in ‘logistica’

Thankfully, there are very few reports of violence, and only 3-4 cases of people attempting vote twice.

Now that the polls are closed, all attention turns to counting the votes and reporting them to the TSE center. Voices staff will be at the TSE center for the rest of the evening, monitoring the process. We will continue to monitor the power outages and report any results as they come in.

http://voiceselsalvador.wordpress.com/

[EFerrari]

7. I heard only 54% in Chelatenango and the poll worker said to the people

don't be afraid to cast your vote despite the propaganda that is trying to frighten you about socialism.

I can only surmise what THAT context was. :grr:

[Peace Patriot]

11. I keep seeing 70% nationwide, one report of 60% (an early report, I think).

Funes way ahead in first reports, but very early returns--way too soon to see the trend.

[EFerrari]

12. It feels like a big win for Funes but I'm just superstitious enough

not to say it out loud.

:hug:

[Peace Patriot]

13. Preliminary result expected by 7:30 PM, but I don't know what time zone.

The TSE has said they will have a preliminary result by 7:30 PM based on 45% of the votes.

http://cispes.org/09electionsblog/

--------------

Elizabeth, what's the time difference, El Salvador vs California?

[EFerrari]

14. It's 5:46 there now -- so, an hour ahead.