Michael Perelman wrote:
Alejandro, do you have anything to add to Ross's report?
--
.
CEPR did some arithmetic:
http://www.cepr.net/pressreleases/2006_09_07.htm
Spanish: http://www.cepr.net/pressreleases/2006_09_07_espanol.htm
CENTER FOR ECONOMIC AND POLICY RESEARCH
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: September 7, 2006
Contact: Mark Weisbrot, 202-293-5380 x122; 202-746-7264
Dan Beeton, 202-293-5380 x 104; 202-256-6116 (cell)
MEXICAN TRIBUNAL RELEASES MORE INFORMATION ON RECOUNT DATA, AFTER
ANNOUNCING DECISION
WASHINGTON - More than three weeks after recounting 9 percent of the
votes in Mexico's election, Mexico's electoral authorities yesterday
(Wednesday, September 6, 2006) posted numbers which allow for an
approximation of the recount totals. The release of the numbers comes
after the Electoral Tribunal declared Felipe Calderón of the PAN
(National Action Party) to be president-elect.
These numbers indicate that this partial recount resulted in an
approximate loss of 2,756 votes for Felipe Calderón of the PAN and a
gain of 2,101 votes for Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the PBT.
"It’s hard to think of a legitimate reason for hiding these numbers from
the beginning (August 13), and it’s clear that releasing them would have
increased the political pressure for a full recount," said Mark
Weisbrot, co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
"And even now they have not informed the public of the complete results
of the partial recount."
The numbers are only approximate, and could be significantly different
from the actual recount results, because some 234,574 votes in 744
ballot boxes (casillas) were annulled; and some – probably most – of
these ballot boxes were subject to recount. In other words, the recount
results for ballot boxes that were recounted but also annulled cannot be
determined from the information given.
It is also worth noting that the Tribunal has yet to post the results by
ballot box of the recounted ballot boxes.[1] This is in sharp contrast
to previous tallies of the entire vote, which were posted as soon as
they were completed.
The arithmetic for approximating the recount results is as follows.
According to the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (TEPJF), we
have the following results:
[To view the results, go to
http://www.cepr.net/graphics/pressrel_2006_09_07.jpg]
In other words, the only changes made to (A), the original count, are
the annulment and the recount. So if we add the final results and the
annulled votes together (B + C), the difference between this sum and the
original count (A) should be the result of the recount (D). The only
caveat, as explained above, is that some of the recounted ballots boxes
were annulled.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research is an independent,
nonpartisan think tank that promotes democratic debate on the most
important economic and social issues affecting people's lives. CEPR's
Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel Laureate economists Robert
Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at
Harvard University; and Eileen Appelbaum, Professor and Director of the
Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University.
###
[1] The results of the recounted ballot boxes are apparently buried in
the many thousands of pages of the 375 verdicts [www.trife.org.mx (see
"Ãltimas sentencias dictadas")] in which the Tribunal ruled on the
challenges to the election. Based on CEPR's partial extraction of this
data, it would take about 200 hours to gather this information, assuming
it is complete.
