27815: Craig (news) Smashed Ballot Boxes Found in Haiti Dump (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig


February 15, 2006
Filed at 2:45 p.m. ET
Smashed Ballot Boxes Found in Haiti Dump
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- U.N. officials sent troops to a garbage dump near 
the Haitian capital Wednesday to collect hundreds of smashed ballot boxes and 
vote count material, more than a week after presidential elections that still 
have not been decided.

Associated Press reporters saw hundreds of empty ballot boxes, at least one 
vote tally sheet and several empty bags -- numbered and signed by the heads of 
polling stations -- strewn across the fly-infested dump five miles north of 
Port-au-Prince.

''That's extraordinary,'' U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst said.

Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that the Feb. 7 vote was marred by 
''massive fraud or gross errors'' designed to leave him just short of the 
majority needed for a first-round presidential victory.

A wave of chaotic protests by Preval supporters sent foreign diplomats 
scrambling for peaceful solutions.

The United States and other countries ''directly involved in the crisis'' were 
discussing a plan to have other candidates recognize Preval's victory and 
prevent a mass uprising, according to Marco Aurelio Garcia, foreign affairs 
adviser to Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Brazil heads U.N. peacekeeping forces in Haiti.

A popularly elected government with a clear mandate from the voters is seen as 
crucial to avoiding a political and economic meltdown in the Western 
Hemisphere's poorest nation. Gangs have gone on kidnapping sprees and factories 
have closed for lack of security.

Haiti's interim government had already ordered a review of the election 
results, promising Tuesday to form a new commission to quickly review voter 
tally sheets.

Preval, the former protege of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has 
urged his supporters to continue protesting nonviolently and says he will 
formally challenge the results if officials insist on holding a runoff in 
March.

When the most recent results were posted on Haiti's electoral council's Web 
site midday Monday, Preval -- a former president and agronomist -- had 48.76 
percent of the vote, with 90 percent of ballots counted. He would need 50 
percent plus one vote to win outright.

Another former president, Leslie Manigat, was in second place with 11.8 percent 
of the vote.

''The government wants to make sure that everything with the process is 
correct,'' interim Interior Minister Paul Magloire told the AP. ''We're going 
to review the results because we want to make sure what we have is right.''

The commission would include representatives of the president's office, the 
electoral council and Preval's party, said Michel Brunache, chief of staff of 
interim President Boniface Alexandre.

Late Tuesday, the local Telemax TV news broadcast images from the dump showing 
smashed white ballot boxes with wads of ballots strewn about. Ballot after 
ballot was marked for Preval.

AP reporters at the dump saw one vote tally sheet from the Port-au-Prince 
neighborhood of Carrefour that recorded 129 votes for Preval out of 202 cast.

A man picking through the dump, Jean-Ricot Guerrier, said a truck dumped the 
material a day after the election. Someone tried to burn the material, but rain 
put out the fire, he said.

Wimhurst said the ballots could have come from any of nine polling stations 
across the country that were ransacked on election day, forcing officials to 
throw out up to 35,000 votes. At least one voting center was destroyed by 
people tired of waiting in line, while others were destroyed by political 
factions, he said.

Wimhurst also said it was possible someone dumped the ransacked ballots to 
create an appearance of fraud.

The electoral council issued a statement saying it would investigate the 
incident because it ''could cause confusion in the electoral process.''

The constitution says a challenge would go to the Supreme Court, but the 
interim government recently decreed that any complaints should go to the 
electoral commission -- the same body releasing the results.

The United Nations provided security for the vote and helped ship election 
returns to the capital, but it is not directly involved in counting ballots.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council urged Haitians to respect election 
results and refrain from violence, and it extended the U.N. peacekeeping 
mission in Haiti for six months through Aug. 15.

A runoff election would pit Preval against Manigat. Manigat's wife, Myrlande, 
declined to say whether anyone had approached him about withdrawing.

Of the 2.2 million ballots cast, about 125,000 ballots have been declared 
invalid because of irregularities, raising suspicion among Preval supporters 
that polling officials were rigging the election.

Another 4 percent of the ballots were blank but were still added into the 
total, making it harder for Preval to reach the threshold needed to avoid a 
runoff.

------

Associated Press reporter Stevenson Jacobs contributed to this report.


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Haiti-Elections.html