From: Rahul Dave (rahul@reno.cis.upenn.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 14 2000 - 06:43:38 PST
I got this from you:
>
>
> > the following was passed on without source:
> >
> > ---snip---
> >
> > A Zimbabwe politician was quoted as saying that children should study
> > the US election event closely because it shows that election fraud is
> > not only a third world phenomena. To illustrate the point, he made the
Whoever said that the US is not a third world country with its wide disparities
between the urban poor and suburban middle and its antiquated cell phone
system and election machines :-)
> > following comments:
> >
>
> Sorry, this is just stupid. This election process completely sucks but I don't
> think fraud was committed by anyone in the Bush or Gore camps. We are
Of course there was fraud. There always is. Americans arent intrinsically
more honest than Zimbabweans.....its one of the reasons Florida really was a tie; its part of the error bar...
> following a hold over from the colonial days (the electorial college) because
> it's Law and still in the Constitution. Pols ignoring laws out of convenience
> is part of what keeps third world nations third world nations. The U.S. should
Hello? Infact it could be argued that the very messiness of democracy
and of course poverty keep them there. Taiwan and Korea started with a lower
GDP than India but raced ahead, both without democracy, as absolutist
leaders implemented beneficial economic policies.
India on the other hand went socialist. But this was the peoples choice.
Now ofcourse electoral fraud is rampant in India, unsurprisingly in a country
which many people have speculated ought to have fallen appart in a worse way
than yuguslavia due to the sheer diversity of its lot..18 languages in about 30
mainly ethnically organized states. But there is a strong
system of democratic checks and balances: a military that will never "coup",
an *independent*, non-political judiciary, including a strong supreme court,
2 houses of legislatures, one directly elected on a constituency basis, and
one elected by state legislatures..to balance the "direct vote" power,
and the usual bunch of pols.
But its still fairly likely that the Zimbabwean statement is
really about that countries own absolutist political system
(in which Mugabe is now saying essentially..go kill the farmers)....
Rahul
> do what it takes to provide decent voting technology to all counties, update
> laws to set standards for recounts, etc. There are a ton of useful things that
> can and should be done to help prevent this from happening again. Bleh...
>
> Bill
>
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