Talk:Controversies of the 2006 Mexican general election/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

We're on WikiPedia's Main Page! --A1437053 21:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

See Also?

Is the 2000 US election included only because it also was a controversial election? It seems that what is happening now in Mexico is of a different scale and type... but I may be wrong. Someone care to qualify the 'see also' or change how it appears? Thanks in advance.

Several articles in the references and further reading links refer to that election, and to some similar irregularities. Someone may need to list some of the similar alleged irregularities claimed. --Timeshifter 02:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I just now noted in the "alleged irregularities" section that similarities were claimed, and I put references to some of the articles.--Timeshifter 06:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Misleading Graph

Isn't Image:2006_Mexican_elections_-_President.png a bit misleading? It makes it look like there were huge changes in the vote counts as the night went on... but the actual changes were in the 2% range. That's much more reasonable.

I'm going to change the image caption to better note the limited range. PyTom 04:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I tried to further clarify the caption. I noted also that the image could be clicked to enlarge it.--Timeshifter 06:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

fotos + felicidades

ya están las fotos :-)

y mil felicidades por el post en la página principal de wikipedia :-)

--Ishihara 08:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:DATE and WP:MOS-L are BOTH true. On overlinking.

--Timeshifter 01:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC). It is good to link the dates with internal links. But it is also true that they should not be repeated. It adds a lot of kilobytes to the page, and increases the load time of the page for dialup users. I know this because I am also a webmaster.

It is not necessary to link the year 2006 dozens of times in the article. Nor is it necessary to link a date such as 31 July when it is within a paragraph or two of the last linked occurence.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:DATE
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MOS-L#Overlinking

From the overlinking section of the WP:MOS-L page called "Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"

START of copied section on overlinking.

On the other hand, do not make too many links. An article may be considered overlinked if any of the following is true:

• more than 10% of the words are contained in links;
• it has more links than lines;
• a link is excessively repeated in the same article; however, duplicating an important link distant from a previous occurrence is appropriate;
• more than 10% of the links are to articles that don't exist; or
• low added-value items are linked without reason — such as, 1995, 1980s, and 20th century.

This also applies to tables, considered by themselves.

END of copied section.

From WP:DATE: If a date includes both a month and a day, then the date should normally be linked to allow readers' date preferences to work, displaying the reader's chosen format. The day and the month should be linked together, and the year should be linked separately if present. Have you see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences? It lets user see dates the way they want, but they have to be linked. I linked those in the article text; delinked those in the references (which I hope is an acceptable compromise). Aille 14:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I just tried that in my preferences. That is really neat. I noticed that it was not necessary to link 2006 for it to work. It worked when just the month and day were linked. It would still order the month and day according to one's preferences. Just not as thoroughly as when all three were linked. This function doesn't fix what I see as a problem, though, with dates. I don't think it works with number-only dates such as 7/8/06. In Europe that would be August 7, 2006. In the USA that represents July 8, 2006. But I accept your compromise since it ends up with less links and kilobytes than before. And it allows the article itself to be read in the format that people use normally concerning dates.--Timeshifter 01:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Claims for and against election irregularities and fraud

--Timeshifter 01:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC). This paragraph below is biased, untrue, and an inaccurate summary of the media article. Go back and read the media article. The part in quotes is not connected in the way that it seems in this paragraph. This paragraph is possibly a deliberate distortion of the article depending on whether it was done with intent to deceive, or through viewing the election with partisan eyes, or other reasons. In any case it does not belong in a Wikipedia article in its present form:

Despite claims that 970,000 party representatives, 25,000 professional monitors, and 639 international observers "judged the elections to have been fair and transparent", López Obrador claimed that he would protest the results, citing electoral irregularities [1].

So I removed it from the article.

Here is the full paragraph from the very biased media article:

On July 2, 970,000 representatives of all political parties, 25,000 professional monitors and 639 international observers from the EU and elsewhere watched the casting and counting of ballots. Overwhelmingly, they judged the elections to have been fair and transparent. Only when the final count showed that the populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador had, contrary to expectations, lost the presidential race by a mere 0.58 per cent margin, did he and his Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) cry foul.

Notice the word "overwhelmingly"

Many party representatives, professional monitors, and international observers made claims of alleged fraud and irregularities. See the external links. Both sides are making sweeping generalizations such as the above paragraph. If you want to put claims for and against fraud from specific groups of party representatives, monitors, and observers, then feel free to do so, but be sure to put citations with links. This is standard Wikipedia practice. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability

I suggest putting the claims for and against fraud and irregularities in 2 separate sections in the wikipedia article and links.

The paragraph is full of misinformation. "representatives of all political parties" is completely untrue. Many representatives of the PRD (the party of Andrés Manuel López Obrador) have cited irregularities. Some monitors and observers have also. It is all in the external links to media and other articles. Also, people were exposing irregularities well before the election.

I think sweeping generalizations should be avoided. There was an August 20, 2006 election in Chiapas after the July 2, 2006 presidential election. In the Chiapas governor election there was fraud claimed by the party opposing the PRD. See these articles:

• http://www.narconews.com/Issue42/article2016.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Mexican_elections
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiapas_state_election%2C_2006

So the tables have turned. There is now much fraud and many major irregularities claimed by both of the major parties in 2 close elections where the preliminary results did not favor them. So sweeping generalizations make no sense now. Citable specifics are what Wikipedia requires. There are plenty of them from both of the major parties, and from many others. See Google News on Mexico election fraud. Sorted by:

• Relevance: http://news.google.com/news?q=mexico%20election%20fraud
• Date: http://news.google.com/news?q=mexico+election+fraud&scoring=d

Also regular Google:

• http://www.google.com/search?q=mexico+election+fraud

Mexico has a long and bitter history of election fraud. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico --Timeshifter 03:20, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Non-working link in Re-Count section

--Timeshifter 14:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC). I removed this non-working link:

• http://www.jornada.unam.mx:3128/solo-procede-el-recuento-en-11-839-casillas-y-no-en-la-totalidad-tepjf

It was at the end of this paragraph:

On Saturday, August 5, the TEPJF met in public session to decide the outcome of López Obrador's request for a recount. The seven magistrates voted unanimously that there is sufficient legal justification to order the recount of only 11,839 ballot boxes in 155 districts (9.2% of the total), thus rejecting López Obrador's public demand that all votes and ballot boxes be recounted.

Does anybody have a working link?--Timeshifter 14:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

That paragrpah was sourced with a note from "El Universal"... I wonder when and why was it replaced with a La Jornada link? --15:40, 2 September 2006 Hseldon10

I don't know, but can you or others post the "El Universal" link at the end of the paragraph. And/or other links that back up the paragraph? Also, please use your signature on notes to talk pages. I added your name and time of post to your above remark. From the history list for this talk page.--Timeshifter 16:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Im sorry about not signing. I just forgot. I'll see what I can do about the link. Hari Seldon 17:32, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the link: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/366854.html --Timeshifter 22:30, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Non-working link in Protests section

--Timeshifter 22:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC). I removed this non-working link from the end of the Sept. 1 entry:

• http://www.jornada.unam.mx:8080/toman-partidos-perredistas-la-tribuna-del-congreso

September 1: Seized the podium of Congress, blocking Vicente Fox's State of the Nation address.

Anybody have a relevant working link?--Timeshifter 22:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

2 non-working links in "Acts of civil disobedience" section

It seems that the bad links found so far below and in the above sections have all been La Jornada links.

Aug. 9 link removed:

• http://www.jornada.unam.mx:8080/finaliza-bloqueo-de-simpatizantes-de-amlo-en-centro-bancario/

August 9: Briefly surrounded and blocked the offices of foreign-owned banks: Citigroup's (United States) Banamex; BBVA's (Spain) Bancomer; and Britain's HSBC.

Aug. 9 link removed:

• http://www.jornada.unam.mx:8080/marchan-simpatizantes-de-amlo-hacia-el-aeropuerto-capitalino

August 9: Initiated a march towards Mexico City's Benito Juárez International Airport, that was dispersed by federal forces.

Anybody have relevant working links?--Timeshifter 23:07, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Unbalanced article?

According to wikipedia guidelines on NPOV: NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all (by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority).

According to recent polls, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and his movement is only supported by 30% of Mexicans. This is a minority, but not a small minority.

In my opinion, the article, as it stands at September 4, 2006, is unfairly balanced having the minority viewpoint greatly advantaged. There is PLENTY of sources stating the truth on what is going on in Mexicco and with Mr. Lopez Obrador. My suggestion is that we start adding sourced content on how the general public, and not only pro-AMLO supporters, actually percieve the post-electoral controversies. Hopefully, this will aid in having the "balance" tag removed.

Hari Seldon 03:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

There were 3 main parties in the presidential election. So 100% divided by 3 equals 33%. So if he still has 30% support then that is pretty good. Also the majority of the residents of Mexico City believed there was fraud and that there should be a recount. The article is about the claimed election irregularites and the huge protests. That is what the title of the article implies. Also there are people on both the right and the left who claim election irregularities and the article states that. So I fail to see what the problem is. I am not Mexican and so I don't know of the character of the candidates. That is not what the article is about. If you have more info that is relevant to the article, then by all means put it in the article. Please source your info so that it can be verified. See: Wikipedia:Verifiability --Timeshifter 04:31, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Timeshifter: Your arguments fail to convince me because they are misleading. There are more than 3 political parties in Mexico, there are 8. 100% divided by 8% equals 12.5%. But since Lopez Obrador is backed by 3 parties, then 12.5% * 3 = 37.5%, which means he isn't doing that great...

Unless, of course, we cease using misleading arguments and recognize that not all parties have the same weight. The PAN and the PRD got close to 40% of the election results each, so having now 30% means that Lopez Obrador is losing popularity.

By the way, may I remind you that Mexico is a very very big country, and that Mexico City accounts for a lot less than half of the population, so, although what they feel is important, does not necessarily mean it is the complete picture of Mexico. By the way, the decline in AMLO's popularity is mainly because his popularity is declining in Mexico City.

There are many sources (quoted in this and other articles) about the polls. However, Reuters publishes this article: [2] on tomorrow's ruling of the electoral court in Mexico. A paragraph says, "30% or more ... still believe he (Calderón) stole the election". Granted, polls vary according to who applies them, but they are within the 30% margin. Either way, that means at least 55% does not agree with Mr. Lopez Obrador, which means that his views are in the minority. Hari Seldon 06:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk pages are not supposed to be forums for political discussion. See: Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. But let us get back to your original NPOV point about fairly representing the viewpoints: "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each." Well this is an article about the July 2, 2006 election controversies in Mexico, and not about the shifting political popularity of various parties and candidates afterwards according to polls. Polls are notoriously unreliable anyways. And that is one reason we have elections with stricter standards theoretically than polls. Those election standards are what are in question, not polls. According to the presidential election results so far, as I said the 3 main parties (or alliances of parties) divided most of the vote: 35.89%, 35.31%, 22.26%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_general_election%2C_2006

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/f5f557c999f5542985d42b1e2b19e440.png

Nearly all the parties filed claims of irregularities concerning the presidential election. I still don't see specifically what you see is the problem with the article. If it needs more info, then please feel free to add more relevant NPOV info that relates to the topic of the article.--Timeshifter 18:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I don't see a problem with the article. Bu i found that someone had added the "balance" tag to the article and the only possible explanation to me was that the majority viewpoint was not being proportionally represented in the article. If else, then I don't understand it. Hari Seldon 18:25, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

If you mean Calderon's viewpoint concerning irregularities in the July 2, 2006 presidential election, then you are incorrect. Calderon won a plurality of the votes, not a majority of the votes. Also his party claimed there were election irregularities in the August 20, 2006 Chiapas state election. So in a 2 month period there was a large majority opinion that there were election irregularities. Even in the presidential election Calderon's coalition filed claims of election irregularities. --Timeshifter 21:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't mean Calderon's viewpoints. I mean the viewpoint of the majority of Mexicans. The Chiapas election is irrelevant to this article, which discusses the Federal election. The filing of irregularities is also irrelevant. The majority viewpoint in Mexico is that, regardless of the irregularities, the forms and manners of the protests are unjustified, and that Lopez Obrador lost the election farily, according to polls. I agree that polls have margins of error and may not be entirely reliable, but they are the best we've got to measure social phenomenon. Marketeers tend to be very succesful in business by applying and interpreting polls in the correct manner. So, though imperfect, polls are a perfectly valid way of measuring social movements, in this case, the majority viewpoint in Mexico about the elections. To be more precise: by majority I am referring to 50% plus one of all mexicans residing in Mexico (country, not city) who have the right to vote, regardless of political affiliation or participation. Hari Seldon 00:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to post polls with sources. People can decide for themselves whether the polls are accurate or not. Just like they can decide for themselves whether the courts ignored many of the irregularities or not. Which many informed people believe according to the many articles I have read. The Chiapas election has been referred to in media articles as being a mirror of the presidential elections. Therefore it is not irrelevant. In the end it is not important what you or I believe. It is what is verifiable. See: Wikipedia:Verifiability. That is wikipedia policy. It is NPOV. It lets people decide for themselves from the available sources. We just put the available info out there in a NPOV way, and with sources so people can verify how credible the sources are. Many media articles point out that many Mexicans are poorly informed about the many claims of fraud and irregularities because the media is not reporting them in detail, and leave most of them out. So in the end polling is not important to many people, and polls are discounted because polling misinformed people yields little. So people who do not see all the info could be expected to be against all the protests because they don't see the full reasons for them. The NPOV guidelines say that all significant viewpoints should be represented, and not that wikipedia articles should state how much each viewpoint is correct or not. And especially not according to which viewpoint is currently in the majority at this time. The majority can be ignorant. The majority is fickle. The majority is constantly shifting over the years. Wikipedia is not about conformism. It is about NPOV info for all significant viewpoints. See: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. --Timeshifter 02:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Listen, I agree with verifiability and NPOV, however, I feel that not enough work is being done to show all points of view. In my opinion, pro-AMLO views are over represented. For example, you state that the court ignored many of the irregularities of the election. In fact, they didn't and a proof is that they ordered a recount of the election (not a general one, but a legal one). Moreover, two months ago courts representatives declared that annuling the election would be impossible because the PRD did not followed the proper legal procedures in time to act accordingly... Also, you claim that "many media articles" talk about mis-information against Lopez Obrador. I challenge that. Only pro-AMLO supporters state that claim. I frequently read AP, AFP, EFE, Reuters, Notimex, Reforma, and El Universal, and it seems to me that ample coverage has been given to all alegations. Unfortunately for Mr. Lopez Obrador, the truth is not with him and that is why he claims "mis-information". So, again, I say that the viewpoint of the majority, a very significan viewpoint, is not properly represented. Further, pro-AMLO viewpoint is also over-represented in this article, and that IS a form of mis-information, and contributes to "ignorant majorities".

I also blame myself. I am too busy to search for free sources to share in this article.Hari Seldon 02:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

New paragraph starting to the left this time since the paragraph indentations are getting extreme. I have read many, many media articles. Many completely ignore specifics about the allegations of fraud and irregularities.

I don't think the wikipedia article is too pro-AMLO. To the contrary. There is much pro-AMLO info that could be added to the article if somebody gets the time. The wikipedia article is actually not representative enough of the pro-AMLO allegations. In fact I don't think any of the specific allegations are currently in the article. I, like you, have not had the time to put all this info in the article, and to source it.

Also, there are articles that point out the many AMLO claims ignored by the courts, and/or decided by the courts in a partisan way. There are other articles that point out the biases of the court members, and the lack of fair represention of all parties in the court. Other articles point out that many of the court members will be out of a job soon, and may be inclined to support the parties in power in order to maintain future jobs. This is commonly called the revolving door policy of courts, business, government, etc. sharing jobs. Or scratch my back, and I will scratch yours. All this info is sourced and relevant to the wiki page.

About the info in the wiki page concerning the Chiapas election being a mirror of the presidential election: That info in effect is supporting the alliance that included Calderon's party in that election. Because Calderon's party is making major claims of fraud and allegation in the Chiapas election. So that info could be construed as pro-Calderon, or his party.

Back to polls. It is common knowledge that poll results can be easily twisted by changing who is polled. The pollers can poll only rich people for the most part. Or mostly poor people. And get completely different poll results. --Timeshifter 06:31, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I took one look at the references and further reading sections to conclude that this article is biased towards AMLO since most of the links come from sites such as La Jornada, alternet, Dailykos, or epluribus, Narconews or other "leftist" sites that have been consistently anti-Calderon. Or there was an instance when Diario Reforma is cited as Conservative, but the daily is considered as centrist. La Cronica de Hoy is a conservative newspaper. There is a report by "Global Exchange" which states there were irregularities and "fraud" instances when international community observers, including the EU say this was a clean election, but there was no mention of this in the article.

Although I think it's very difficult to find neutral references because the truth can be subjective, we should try to balance it. I will add some references, which will change the story somewhat, including accusing everyone who is against him of conspiring against the people. There accusations from La Cronica accusing PRD of ordering elderly people receiving aid from the city government to attend the marches or risk losing subsidies and threatening city employees with firing if they don't support the cause finacially and physically or even paying protesters from other states 250 pesos a day to camp along Ave. Reforma. There was a photo of people lined up waiting to have their voters' card cross checked against a database. I'll try to find the article. Edu76 17:09, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

These mainstream media are also used as sources in the references and further reading sections: Several Mexican newspapers, CBC News, KGBT-TV, The Dallas Morning News, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, New York Times, CNN, Malaysia Sun, Taipei Times, and The Washington Post.--Timeshifter 17:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi everyone. I'm a mexican citizen who voted on July 2. It's true that the article could contain more AMLO-sided information. However, we should have in mind that this is the article about the elections, not about whether the fraud was real or not. We should focus in submitting the information that comes from both AMLO and Calderon. About the polls... well, I can tell you that one of the biggest problems in Mexico is the HUGE differences between the socio-economic layers, so if any poll can be twisted, in Mexico's population it can be Incredibly twisted just by changing your polled people's place by 60 Km. Polls here are NOT a true reference. I just wanted to establish that fact. {Unsigned comment Sept. 6, 2006 from Andycyca}

Just wanted to point out as a un-biased 3rd party that this article seems very PRO-AMLO, definitely agree that it needs to be balanced, it's quite a bit biased.

Spratt_ 12:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I am also a citizen of Mexico City and agree with the post just before the one over this (he should have put a signature...), what about those TONS of photographs, its unnecessary to have all of them here, just a few examples could be enough, it's obvious that many Pro-AMLO wikipedians keep posting such material in this article to strenghthen their point of view, we need more balance and more opinions from other points-of-view, those pics will never show the true public opinion of the entire country. --189.135.65.241 04:50, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Article needs specific claims of irregularities, fraud, bias.

I agree that the article is unbalanced. It does not currently list any of the many specific claims and filings of AMLO's alliance concerning election irregularities and fraud. Also the many claims of irregularities made by the opposing parties in the presidential election. Also the many claims made by non-party observers. Also the claims of bias and conflicts of interest concerning the members of the court. --Timeshifter 03:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it does not currently list the specific claims and filings of Mr. Lopez Obrador's Party, and further, it doesn't list how these claims have been proven to be false, or have been proven to have no judicial value. Furthermore, it doesn't list the many times that Felipe Calderón has proposed a negotiation to create a coalition government, an offering that mr. Lopez Obrador has refused. The article also doesn't claim how one party in Mr. Lopez Obrador's alliance has judged his actions to be improper and has decided to separate from the alliance. Hari Seldon 14:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The article also does not list the claims ignored by the courts, and why.--Timeshifter 17:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, the WHY is the important issue here, and the WHY was declared by the courts two months ago to be: "because the PRD did not presented them in a proper and timely fashion". This is quoted in one of the "El Universal" sources in the article. Hari Seldon 20:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

From my reading of articles the courts ignored other claims even after they were properly submitted. And the redress of the grievances that were properly submitted was inadequate according to many. So there are many details from all viewpoints that need to be addressed in the article. --Timeshifter 20:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

"According to many", according to whom? What specific claims can you source as being ignored? Hari Seldon 21:10, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I could ask the same for all the things you have said. It is a legitimate question. And when either of us gets more time and motivation we can start filling in all these details and putting sources for them. I was too busy finding the many articles and trying to get a big picture. Others may have to help put the specific info into wikipedia. The info is in the references and further reading sections. The details are important. Because here in the USA during the 2000 presidential election Al Gore lost the election when the vote was counted one way using only a partial recount of Florida votes. But long after the election the media paid for a full recount of Florida votes, and Al Gore won. So people worldwide have less and less trust in the election process in the USA, and the fairness of its courts in ruling on those elections. And so people are very curious about the details of the election process in Mexico, the USA's neighbor. In recent months in the USA there was a very detailed analysis of the vote in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election by Robert Kennedy. It showed many more details of fraud and irregularities. So people are digging a lot deeper into the details.--Timeshifter 21:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

In my case it is simple: according to the courts, and according to major media sources. In the time we've been discussing i've provided to the article with three sources. The big picture is: the election was acceptably fair, specially considered to what they used to be in Mexico, and there is a clear, validated winner of the election, and there is no justification for blocking streets, congress, or claiming unsourced, undocumented fraud, particularly when your "evidence" has been proven to be bogus by the many institutions and NGOs that monitored the election. Obviously, changes in the way votes are counted, specially with such a small difference, can cause reversible results, and that is what Mr. Lopez Obrador was hoping for. However, the rules are set in law, and I think that the best solution is stop arguing, any of the parties can (and was) wronged by irregularities in the process. The goal here is not to get a hold of a position of power, but to make the country better, and I see no other way of doing it than by having these two characters using their political capital to negotiate a strong coalition government. So far, mr. Lopez Obrador has refused to do this, and instead has alienated the more than 60% of voters who did not vote for him. I've sourced this previously. Hari Seldon 01:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Back to no indentation for this paragraph. Now you are having a political discussion about what AMLO should or should not do, and your personal opinion of political candidates. That is not allowed on wikipedia talk pages. See: Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines. Also it is almost a personal attack on me when you refer to evidence being mine, or being undocumented. I pointed to the references. Read them. Personal attacks are not allowed in wikipedia pages. See: Wikipedia:No personal attacks. What you just said is a vast generalization similar to the paragraph discussed in the above section titled "Claims for and against election irregularities and fraud." --Timeshifter 02:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

What about non-PRD protests and meetings?

The whole article is focused on the disagreement of the PRD supporters. Shouldn't the WHOLE picture of the article be focused on all the sides? I see a lot of photographs and information about PRD protests and nothing about other factions (like the neutral human chain made in Insurgentes, or the PAN Plaza de Toros meeting, included in this article) this article must be redone in orther to respect the NPOV standards. Anyone agrees?

I've removed some pictures, they were redundant. {Unsigned comments Sept. 18, 2006 from 189.135.65.241}

I agree that this article is biased. I would like to point a few things:

• A controversy means two parties are actively arguing as they have contrary opinions. That means the article should mention only the opinions for which there is contrary one.

• There can be millions of opinions of people and organizations, only the most important should be mentioned, and probably the general opinion of both sides.

• Polls of opinions of people should be taken as the opinion of one side, the side in which the publisher is.

• Marches don't tell anything about controversies, except that they exist, but not what they are about. Are the pepople protesting against the result? Because they think there was fraud? Because they want to open the polls to know if there was fraud? Because they want another election? Or because they want peace? You can't tell.

-- Felipec 09:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Ballots in garbage dumps?

I've read that they were proven to be the copies owned by the PRD.

Besides, most of their proofs have been debunked (videos, photos, the PREP argument, etc.) -{Unsigned Sept. 23, 2006 comment by 201.132.242.39}

You are right. Almost all alleged "proof" that the PRD "had" has been disqualified judicially. The claim that there was electoral fraud is as credible as the claim that aliens from outer space are abducting people. However, fanatics never listen to reason. Hari Seldon 03:10, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

--Timeshifter 12:58, 23 September 2006 (UTC). The last half of your comment is a roundabout personal attack, and if I choose to I have the right to remove it. See the "how to refactor" section of the wikipedia policy page on removing personal attacks. That section, and other sections of that page, explain roundabout personal attacks. I am posting the standard cautioning template {{subst:Npa2}} paragraph concerning personal attacks:

Please see Wikipedia's no personal attacks policy. Comment on content, not on the contributor; personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Note that continued personal attacks may lead to blocks for disruption. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you.

--Timeshifter 12:58, 23 September 2006 (UTC). In the article I posted claims of journalists (with links to their articles, some with photos of filled-out multi-color ballots, not photocopies). From various sources there have been claims made concerning ballots, election materials, ballot boxes, etc. being found in various trash cans, garbage dumps, etc. in various cities. Some claim that some of the stuff that has been found is photocopies. I have not yet seen an article with the photocopy claim. Feel free to post that source. And post it concerning a specific garbage dump incident, etc..--Timeshifter 12:58, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Not useful information

I'm removing the following line:

There were 673 international election observers for 130,000 polling stations. Most of them were diplomats, and were therefore not allowed to make public comments.

This alone doesn't make any point. It should be mentioned in the context in the point that most election observers claimed the elections where clean.

Also the article states that:

PAN has claimed that the elections were clean because of the presence of international election observers. However, the 673 election observers only oversaw a fraction of the country's 130 thousand polling stations and one of the international observer groups, Global Exchange, has documented possible cases of vote-buying by the PAN and PRI political parties, illegal confiscations of voter ID cards and ballot shortages at certain polling stations.

So why is the majority of the press repeating that the presence of international observers ensured that the election was clean and fair? "It was the electoral tribunal itself that put out that press release about the observer's," Global Exchange President Ted Lewis told me. "We were really annoyed with them when they did that. And about two thirds of the other observers were diplomats who are not allowed to make public comments."

So the reference to this fact is supposed to be something Ted Lewis said. Who is president of Global Exchange, which is left-sided.

-- Felipec 15:57, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I see your point that the statement about the 673 international election observers does not make as much sense when the controversies are not adequately explained. There was election observer info in a couple places in the article. You may not have seen the info in the old section called "Arguments considering the election fair." So I created a section called "Election observers" and moved the info concerning the election observers to that section. The controversies are clearer now. I deleted the section called "Arguments considering the election fair". All the info in that section was about election observers. All of that info has been moved to the election observers section. --Timeshifter 16:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it's better, but could be improved. For starters, the comment is still misleading; I haven't found any reference other than Ted Lewis' comment that two thirds of the observers where diplomats, and where not allowed to make comments. -- Felipec 23:02, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Your rewrite made it seem like the 673 number and the two thirds number both came from Ted Lewis. The 673 number came from Sophie McNeill's article. She does not say it came from Ted Lewis. I looked at the Global Exchange website articles again, and did not see any total number for international opservers. The two thirds number came from Ted Lewis as reported by Sophie McNeill. So I rewrote it to make it clearer as to where the numbers came from. Both our previous rewrites were confusing on this. Hope this helps. --Timeshifter 01:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

That seems better, but anyway Sophie McNeill wasn't an election observer and doesn't provide any reference to that number. That makes me wonder on the reliability of that reporter. I have seen other articles that say Ted Lewis made those comments, so at least that information is OK. -- Felipec 09:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

The wikipedia article states that Sophie McNeill reported that 673 number. So people can decide for themselves on the reliability of that number. There are also some links in the article to show that she really is an Australian TV reporter for SBS Dateline Australia. --Timeshifter 22:08, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandal left link Sept. 27, 2006

In the same day 2 anonymous vandals deleted a lot of stuff from the article. I reverted the vandalism both times. One of the vandals left a Spanish-language link. Maybe someone who reads Spanish might want to check the link left by 189.164.62.242 since I deleted the link not knowing what it was. I don't read Spanish. And normally we are not supposed to leave foreign language links in a wikipedia page unless there is no other source handy. Also the reason for adding the link must be explained.--Timeshifter 05:50, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Could you please tell me the link, im mexican and ill gladly tell you what's the content. --189.135.66.20 01:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

"Elecciones 2006 - Quejas sin sustento". By Armando Reyes Vigueras, July 2006. --Timeshifter 02:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

This link contains information about the point of view of PAN against PRD allegations of fraud. It has response by response for each fraud statement. As this is a controversy, i don't see why not to leave it. --189.135.60.31 01:58, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Please don't edit what other people write on a talk page. That is not normally allowed on a talk page. I had the link in the format that is already being used in the external links section of the wikipedia article. You changed it to a different format. You can do so in your posts on a talk page, but please don't change my posts on a talk page. I changed my last post back to what I had before. Feel free to put the link in the wikipedia article. I don't feel comfortable doing it myself since I can't read what it says. Please explain what you just wrote too, since normally Wikipedia doesn't want foreign-language links in an article. Is there an English version of some of that response-by-response info on that site? If so, please put that link too. --Timeshifter 14:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

It was my mistake as I dont know what happened when I submitted my comment but all of it was unformatted and i thought some symbol in yours could had caused it, my apologies for that.As for the Spanish-written link, it's not likely to be found in English as it's part of a PAN magazine which as far as i knowdoesn't have an English written edition. --189.135.63.250 02:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with the link being put in the article. But I can't read it, so someone else will have to put the link in the article. Maybe the info will get translated into English someday, and that link will also be put in the article.--Timeshifter 22:13, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

What does the pictures have to do with the controversies?

I quote the Wikipedia definition of controversy:

A controversy is an opinion or opinions over which parties are actively arguing. Controversies can range from private disputes between two to large scale disagreements. Benford's law of controversy, as expressed by science-fiction author Gregory Benford in 1980, states "Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available."

I think photos don't express any argumentation of opinions. The article is not about the issues in the election, so I say the photos should be removed, and maybe placed in the article about the election itself. --{Unsigned comment October 14 from Felipec}

There are photos on many Wikipedia pages. What better and more relevant photos could there be for this article? The photos show that this is about "large scale disagreements". The size of the rallies was historic. The rallies are about the controversies. The main election article is not the place for these photos. The main election article does not have much info about the controversies. This article was started in order to cover the election controversies in detail. Therefore the photos belong here. --Timeshifter 22:16, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

The photos show that there is a disagreement with the status quo ante, but you can't say what that people actually claimed. Some might have thought that there was fraud in the election, some might have wanted a total recount, some might have gone there simply because they didn't have anything better to do. So again, the only thing the photos prove is that there was disagreement, but not why, and the why is the controversies reside.

So one photo documents that there was disagreement in a visual manner, what the other 15 do?

And why aren't there photos of the campings on the main avenues, and the damages made by those. What about the commercials on the TV about the disagreement of the rest of the people whose life where affected? Are there going to be another 16 photos of the commercials?

In my opinion one photo does the job, and a comment about the number of rallies, and the estimate number of people on them would certainly help more than more photos of the same thing. Actually the main article has that precisely, perhaps a photo showing the huge amount of people would be better than the current one with a march in Guanajuato. -- Felipec 04:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

As i had stated it would be fair to include photos not only of PRD protests: there have been others done by PAN supporters and some neutral ones (Insurgentes human cchain for example), again... this is a controversy, all sides must be balanced in order to achieve a concrete article 189.135.73.211 04:55, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

12.33.138.2 14:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)== Article completely unbalanced ==

The article is definitely, unbalanced.

It cites several times the newspaper "La Jornada", known to be a pro-AMLO journal. And known not to be of any credibility for an important sector of the Mexican population. It also cites strange unknonw source "El Machete", which is, by no means, representative of the opinion of the general population (a newspaper that can be considered "Nationwide" in Mexico, and that can be considered to be read widely, is "El Universal", which is also cited in the article, but only once. "El Universal" published plenty of articles both in favor of Lopez Obrador and against him. That is a more "balanced" source of information, but still partial and subjective).

There are plenty of media sources that published demonstrations of why Lopez Obrador's allegations are not properly supported.

The article also depicts all what the PRD and his coallition think about the election. It does not depict what other sectors of the population perceive and say.

At the same time, the article "ignores" the fact that Mexico City is 20% of the nationwide population, and that in many states (mainly in the north of the country) Calderon was much more favored.

The article intends to "hide" its pro-AMLO essence, by citing some facts, out of context, without complete information or without corresponding responses to all the alleged arguments, which were also published in other means (obviously not in La Joranada!).

Also, uses sentences construction that simulates to be "describing" facts, and not really giving an opinion.

The whole article should be re written.

Mckappa 23:38, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to add more facts and claims. But be sure to cite your sources. --Timeshifter 00:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi timeshifter. As an experienced wikipedian, you can probably answer this: Are you the "owner" of the article? Are wikipedia articles suppossed to be "owned"? Isn't the philosophy of wikipedia to be filled with WW contributions? Sorry not having e-mailed it directly, but not sure how to e-mail to other wikipedians. Mckappa 14:20, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Each user determines whether he wants to put out his email address. I do not do put out my email address. No one owns a wikipedia page. Anybody can edit wikipedia pages. There are wikipedia rules that one must adhere to, though. --Timeshifter 22:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Mckapa, this article is indirectly in favor of the PRD point of view. We should redone or balance the article, i dont think there would be an objection to that. Should we start a concensus? --189.135.66.97 05:26, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I also agree with Mckapa, the article is totally unbalanced.

Now, regarding Timeshifter's comment: "Feel free to add more facts and claims. But be sure to cite your sources", why not feel free to remove unnecessary information?. Citing Wikipedia:

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.

Also, a key Wikipedia policy is Avoid bias. If we have 10 arguments supporting side A, and 2 arguments supporting side B, and no one is adding side B arguments we should remove the 8 side A arguments in order to be balanced. In first place it would be better if arguments where entered at the same time, the same person should add a n argument for side A with it's sources, and the counter-argument for side B with it's sources.

Also, consensus is a Wikipedia guideline, we should seek it. It has been mentioned a lot of times that this article is biased, and it should be re-done completely, my best guess is that more people want it re-done, than the amount of people that want it the way it is right now. It seems only Timeshifter is against re-doing it, is there anybody else? Maybe we can make a straw poll.

Also, regarding neutrality Wikipedia says: "It means citing verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible, especially on controversial topics." El Machete is far from being an authoritative sources, and most of the sources of the article are of this kind.

And finally saying that removing things is vandalism doesn't do any good. Again, Wikipedia says to assume good faith.

-- Felipec 17:04, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Other than talk page edits you have had a total of 3 edits on wikipedia pages so far. See list here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Felipec

I have almost a thousand edits on wikipedia pages so far:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Timeshifter

There are very few comments on this talk page from veteran wikipedia editors that have not been resolved for the most part. Also, many sources have been used in the article. See the reference section of the article. There are many mainstream and alternative media sources. This is by far, one of the better-sourced wikipedia pages. No one is stopping anyone from adding more info and sources. --Timeshifter 19:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

So, does that gives you the right to decide what stays? Which coincidentally is mostly your editions. And better-sourced is a relative qualification, more is not always better. It's still marked as biased, and that's an important bad thing. -- Felipec 06:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

In order to arrive to consensus let's make a straw poll:

Please sign your name using four tildes (~~~~) under the position you support, preferably adding a brief comment. If you are happy with more than one possibility, you may wish to sign your names to more than one place.

• The article is OK as it is
• The article needs more information for the left side
• The article needs more information for the right side
• The article should have less information for the left side
• The article should have less information for the right side
• The article should be re-done
  • I would like a one on one argumentation, not a bunch of sources -- Felipec 06:34, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

--Timeshifter 12:35, 27 October 2006 (UTC). Wikipedia is not a debating society between 2 simple positions of right and left. It also is not about consensus. It is about putting out verifiable info from sources. If you have more info, and the sources to back it up, then please add the info, and the sources. You obviously are not very familiar with the wikipedia guidelines. Please read them all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines

--Timeshifter 12:35, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I might not be familiar with the guidelines, but I have been reading them and consensus is a Wikipedia guideline. And I certainly doubt Wikipedia encourages a single person to decide that the current content should not be removed. Please see straw polls, it's a perfectly valid resource in order to find consensus, which is something I'm not the only one asking for here.

Besides, even if Wikipedia is not a debating society between two simple positions you should take a look at the title of the article: "Mexican general election 2006 controversies", they key word is controversy, which citing Wikipedia is "an opinion or opinions over which parties are actively arguing", so by definition the article should mention the argumentation of the opinions. Or rename the article to "Mexican general election 2006 disagreements", which better describes the current purpose of the content of the article.

-- Felipec 16:13, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Here is a quote from the top of the overall Wikipedia guidelines page: "While we try to respect consensus, Wikipedia is not a democracy, and its governance can be inconsistent."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines

You can't vote here to overrule the Wikipedia guidelines. You can't remove the current content by a straw poll consisting of your friends. The current content meets the Wikipedia guidelines because it is verifiable and sourced. People have added info and sources from various sides. As I said, if you have more info, then please put it in the article. With the sources. --Timeshifter 17:25, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

What are you afraid of? I'm not asking my friends, I'm asking the community and it's a simple question, it doesn't mean it's going to be done. If you believe Mckappa and others are friends I asked for help you are not only wrong, but certainly not acting in good faith.

Just because the content is verifiable and sourced doesn't mean it meets Wikipedia guidelines. Besides, policies are more important than guidelines, and a very important one, specially for controversies is Neutral point of view, and the current content doesn't meet it.

I understand that you don't want all your work to be gone, but starting from scratch doesn't mean all your work will be gone, because obviously there is important information there, but it would have be slowly added always carefully keeping the neutral point of view.

Regarding the quote: "While we try to respect consensus, Wikipedia is not a democracy, and its governance can be inconsistent.", it states that Wikipedia tries to respect consensus, so there's nothing wrong with trying to achieve it.

Another important policy is:

Ownership of articles

You agreed to allow others to modify your work. So let them.

-- Felipec 21:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

You don't understand Wikipedia guidelines partly because you have done so few edits. I can see why you have done so few edits, because the last one you did here had typos and errors of misspelling, grammar, and English wording. I corrected your many errors. Obviously you are not a native English speaker. I have learned a second language also, so I can understand why you have so few edits on English-language Wikipedia.

You think I don't understand the Wikipedia guidelines, it's your opinion and I won't take it as true.

No you don't understand, I have done few edits because I have never found an article that I would like to edit until now. Also, I don't normally make so much errors, I guess I didn't took the time to re-check what I wrote, I simply made a direct translation of what I read which is much accurate than what was written down. With your changes it now has better "English wording" but still is not what the articles says. I know English, but I don't know how to translate Mexican legal jargon into English one.

-- Felipec 17:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I kept the gist of what you wanted in the article. So no one is censoring you. Also, there is info in the article about how both sides have been accused of fraud and irregularities in this election and one following it. I added the info about the following election where it was the left who won the election, and it was the right who were claiming fraud and irregularities. I am not a supporter of any political parties in Mexico. I don't even understand Mexican politics that well, since I do not read Spanish. I am interested in the issue of election fraud and irregularities which is what this article is about. All sides are represented in the article. If you have more info, then stop complaining, and put the info in the article. Seeking Wikipedia consensus is not about trying to please political parties and their supporters. It is about seeking to meet Wikipedia guidelines. --Timeshifter 16:42, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course, all the sides are represented, in a biased way. I would still want to know the opinion of other people via the poll.

-- Felipec 17:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

How can we achieve a form to contact an administrator or wikipedia expert so as to calm down this discussion and start the balancing of this article? --189.135.70.251 04:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

...and by the way to analyze Timeshifter editing behavior as I agree with what Felipec has stated: It seems a little 'suspicious' --189.135.70.251 04:44, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

---

Start of McKappa reply

Timeshifter. Fortunately for you, you have plenty of time to edit and erase all what we comment against. That makes you be sort of the "owner" of the article. In my opinion, Felipec, we should write a completely different article, explaining the nature of the controversy from another perspective. A more "partial" en "centralized" one.

I haven't erased any sourced material. You keep complaining about wanting to add more info. No one is stopping you. --Timeshifter 08:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Timeshifter is definitely not going to accept that "his" article is completely unbalanced, and he will continue making changes "pretending" he is partial. He says he has plenty of sources, but unfortunately his sources are not any credible ones. He cites "La Jornada", the worst, more partial source of information about this controversy.

Felipec, let's coordinate together (you and I, and whoever else would like to participate -including pro-AMLO with some decent wish to write a balanced article-) and let's start it. I know Timeshifter can always edit what we do, but we should can also revert his edits all the time. I propose to call it "Controversies of Presidential Election in Mexico 2006, a balanced view".

Mckappa 04:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Mckappa, I couldn't agree with you more. This is the reason I stopped trying to contribute to this article. It is evident that the regular editors, those who don't have to work and/or have enough free time to advance their version of reality in wikipedia, have as a priority to advance their political positions, instead of presenting a neutral and balanced article.

It seems to me that consensus seems to go around the unbalance of this article. The only thing that prevents me to edit is time! How sad! However, it seems to me that a rewriting of this article is necessary, instead of writing a "competing" article. Hari Seldon 04:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Mckappa, Hari Seldon, I also agree, maybe we can get our hands in some private wiki where we can edit a new article freely, and once we are happy with the results start merging stuff to this article. In my personal opinion the best way to start is with a list of the controversies, and then with the claims of both sides. -- Felipec 19:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

My personal reading is that there is a clear unbalance, at least in the sourcing for the article, if not the actual presentation. The vast majority of sources are staunchly pro-López Obrador (e.g., La Jornada, Narco News, New Left Review). while other sources are merely neutral (El Universal, foreign press, etc). I know that "a lot more pro-López Obrador" could be added, but the unbalance of an article is not measured by how much it omits in favor of one side, but by whether the views are accurately and proportionally represented. I am not advocating for a 50-50 split on opinions, but the general weight shoudl somehow reflect the general feeling on the issue. One would surmise from reading this article that there is a majority consensus that fraud either likely or may have occurred; the opposite seems to me to be true, based on both personal observation and reading, and polls I have seen. The allegations are labeled as allegations, but there seems to be little or nothing said on the debunking of many of them. Is it not relevant that López Obrador produced a video, allegedly smuggled, which he claimed showed ballot stuffing; and that it was clear that he was transferring ballots from the wrong box to the correct one, in plain view (as per the law)? That the video was not smuggled, and that the PRDs own representative to the polling place verified this? Or that López Obrador dismissed this by accusing the representative of having been bought? They produced a woman claiming to be a poll worker whom the PAN tried to bribe, but the claim did not hold up upon scrutiny (she wasn't a poll worker). They produced a man claiming to have been working for the IFE and saying his boss had made him input fake results favorable to Calderón, but again the claim crumbled upon scrutiny. López Obrador accused the PRD's own election observers of having been bought (since many of the polls in which he claimed irregularities had signed statements by those observers saying no irregularities had been observed). Making unfounded or provably false allegations time and again is a measure of credibility, and the López Obrador campaign made many; yet they are not mentioned as far as I can tell. Magidin 19:58, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

According to polls, 50% of the voters feel the elections where fair, while 30% feel the election was a fraud. Therefore, 50% of the content should present the view of a fair election, and 30% should present the arguments to that supposed fraud. Timeshifter argues that no one is stopping me from adding info, but the fact is that I have too little time to do it myself. I ask concious editors to take this opportunity at improving the article. Hari Seldon 23:07, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

You are not the only one with limited time. I spent longer than I wanted to (or should have) fixing up the section on the PREP, as you can probably tell by looking at the times in the history. Magidin 23:48, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

According to a Sept. 8-30, 2006 Ipsos/AP poll of citizens of 9 nations Mexicans had the lowest confidence that their votes are counted accurately. [3] Angus Reid Global Scan, Canada, writes: "87 per cent of Canadian respondents are very or somewhat confident that votes in their elections are counted accurately. France was next on the list with 85 per cent, followed by Germany with 84 per cent, South Korea with 83 per cent, Britain with 79 per cent, and Spain with 75 per cent. The lowest level of trust was registered in Mexico with 60 per cent, Italy with 65 per cent and the United States with 66 per cent." [4] --Timeshifter 23:30, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Seems like a bit of a non-sequitur. Nobody is arguing that mexicans have a high level of trust as compared to other nations. In fact, it is the relatively low confidence (compared to other nearby countries) that is exploited by those who simply cry 'Fraud' without proof. Rather, the point is that a majority of mexicans believe the election was not fraudulent. Even at 60% that would mean that more mexicans believe their votes were accurately counted than not. Magidin 23:48, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Some more poll info from the Wikipedia article:

Nationwide polls: A poll released July 27 by El Universal found that 48 percent wanted a full recount, and 28 percent were against it. [5] 39 percent of Mexicans believe fraud occurred according to a nationwide poll of registered voters taken August 25 through 28, 2006 by the newspaper El Universal. 51 percent believed the election was clean. [6] [7] --Timeshifter 00:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't support any particular candidate or party in Mexican elections. I don't read Spanish, so I don't really know much about the candidates or parties. All the parties have made allegations of irregularities or fraud in the presidential election and/or the state election that followed soon after it. The roles have been reversed too when one side or the other wins a particular election. I put that info in the article. I am sure that some of the claims made by all sides have later been found to be mistaken claims or exaggerated claims or possibly fraudulent claims. Wikipedia just reports the info and sources and claims and counterclaims, and lets readers decide for themselves. You also have to remember that there is a lot less info in English than in Spanish. I have to deal with the English sources. So Magidin, your fluency in both languages is a great help. --Timeshifter 23:30, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It is something of an exaggeration to say the roles were merely reversed in the two elections. The PAN did not call for a full recount, nor did it claim a "State Election", nor did it bring forth videos claiming they presented one thing when they were another, nor did they accuse their own poll workers of having bought. Neither did they claim to have "won by two million votes" (the claim made by AMLO on Sunday night when he claimed victory), nor to be ahead in the polls by 10 points in some secret polling which they refused to reveal. Dismissing the long track record of false claims by saying that you are sure "all sides" have engaged in "some" such behavior seems rather cavalier to me. Magidin 23:48, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I am not dismissing anything. Just pointing out the obvious. The same stuff goes on in the USA. Claims and counterclaims. From all sides. Some of it is found to be true. Some not. I am not taking sides. And there is a long track record of this stuff in Mexico going back many years. --Timeshifter 00:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The point is that this is not simply "claims and counterclaims. From all sides." The PRD has a history of crying Fraud. Sure, the wolf did eventually come for the sheep, but the context is important. The PRD cannot even hold internal contested elections without the loser claiming that he was defrauded. While the PRD has set forth many nebulous claims, most of which contradict each other, they have yet to produce something that rises above the level of insinuation and innuendo which is not quickly demonstrated to be false or baseless. Why is this not relevant to the context? I think you are trying to be fair; but I think you do not realize the proper context for the situation. You seem to be getting most of your information from "independent" news sources; that's fine, they often include a lot of information not carried by the usual ones. But the, remember: FOX News is an independent news source in that regard: it does not rely on the usual news outlets to produce its news. Does that make them somehow a reliable source? López Obrador stated time and again that a triumph "by the right" (i.e., the PAN), was "unacceptable" and "morally unacceptable." On July 2nd he claimed a two million vote advantage, now he is saying that he won by less than 0.25%, while at the same time saying that the fraud did not involve votes cast, but rather the "prevailing environment". Which is it? Is it relevant? I think it is. I think just saying "all sides do it" or "some true, some false" is far too cavalier an attitude. I say this as someone who personally experienced the PRD from its inception. And as long as I am at it: why are some labeled as "right-leaning" before reporting their opinion that the election was fair, but those who proclaim their opinion the other way are not labeled? Alianza Cívica may be a government watchdog, but it is hardly independent: it has close ties to the PRD. Perhaps all those "right-leaning" labels ought to be removed. Magidin 19:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

You have to remember that this page was edited by many people. I tried removing all the right and left-leaning stuff initially, but people kept insisting on similar stuff. They would use much stronger language, though. So we came to a compromise and used the terms right and left leaning. It seemed the most NPOV description. It was not an attacking, inciting description such as "far-right" or "extreme leftist" and other such descriptions.

If you find verifiable sourced material that claims that this and that specific PRD allegation in the 2006 election is wrong for such and such reason, then absolutely, please put it in the article. --Timeshifter 22:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

PREP vs. Quick Count

The text of the article suggests (and states overtly at least once) that the PREP and the Quick Count are the same thing. They are most definitely not.

The Quick Count ("Conteo Rapido", as opposed to the PREP, "Programa the Resultados Electorales Preliminares"), was a statistical sampling model of several polling places. It was meant as a statistical tool of prediction. The results from the Quick Count, which were made public some days later, showed that the statistical tests showed Calderon as winning in all three, but in two of them the difference was within the margin of error and in the third it was only barely outside. It was because of this, as per prior agreement, that the IFE declared the race too close to call (the prior agreement was that the IFE would either state which candidate was projected to be the winner based on the Conteo Rapido, or ask for a couple more hours to collate more results, or declare the race too close to call). The Quick Count was not the PREP. As it happens, the final tally agreed with the Quick Count results.

The PREP on the other hand is the quick dissemination of full results as reported by the district electoral councils to the IFE. There is no statistical component to the PREP, as opposed to the Quick Count which is an entirely statistical analysis of results.

See for example [8], in which Ugalde speaks of making the results from the Quick Count known, and whether the tecnical committee felt it would be possible to determine the electoral tendencies at the time. Another note is in: [9] Finally, the official report from the tecnical committee is at [10] Magidin 22:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I did not write those 2 sections in the article: "Quick count" and "Official count". But I would really appreciate it if you could rewrite both of those sections. With as much detail as possible. I don't read Spanish so I can't follow up on the links you left. If you rewrite those sections please leave some links sprinkled around in it. Just plain old external links if you want. Like you did in your above comment. I can convert them to detailed reference links. That will save you some time. --Timeshifter 22:49, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I've rewritten the first, with a title change. I will get to the second part when time permits, probably later today. Magidin 17:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I've done a lighter but nontrivial rewrite to the Official Count section as well, and some small additions and fixes to the other section. Magidin 19:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Is disagreeing with Timeshifter a form of vandalism?

I have deleted the See Also section because if you remove "Electoral Fraud", there is nothing else to see...

I believe that removing "Electoral Fraud" as a link would greatly aid in the neutrality of the page. Having that link makes the implication that the 2006 election was a form of electoral fraud, advancing the thesis of the minority who saw their candidate lose the election. In honor of neutrality, I believe this article should strive to focus on facts, and the fact is that the election was held, and that controversies where filed, but that there is was no legal resolution, or no majority opinion (at least in Mexico) that electoral fraud occured.

Having the link is an implication that fraud occured in Mexico in 2006, and that the controversies have factual value. I contest this conclusion, as many others in this talk page do. Indeed, for the benefit of neutrality, the link in the "see also" section should be deleted. Hari Seldon 06:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Is agreement with Hseldon now a new wikipedia guideline?

Having a "See also" section is normal for most wikipedia pages. They put in links to other wikipedia pages about the same topic or related topics. This article is about alleged electoral fraud. The wikipedia article on electoral fraud has a lot of info on all types of electoral fraud and irregularities. It is a good place to look to learn, and to decide which, if any, of the claims in the Mexican election are similar or not. It is not a claim that the Mexican election was, or was not, fraudulent. Let the readers decide. I will add some additional "See also" links. --Timeshifter 08:30, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I was not asking for you to agree with me, only to discuss the point before imposing your point of view, and calling mine vandalism.

I am not against a See Also link, but I think the See Also should link to other controversial elections, or to other Mexican elections. The See Also section adds context. By adding a link to "Electoral Fraud" the context you are advancing is one with the conclusion that the 2006 elections constituted Electoral Fraud. They do not, and so the link should be removed from the See Also section. Hari Seldon 18:32, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I added this note after the Electoral Fraud link: "Inclusion of this wikipedia link does not indicate endorsement of the claims made of electoral irregularities and fraud in the 2006 Mexican general election." I know of no other wikipedia page that does this. You will note that the solution was to add more info, to clarify, and to edit, not to delete material. Deleting material is vandalism when editing it would solve the problem. Look it up in the wikipedia guidelines. --Timeshifter 21:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually it is a wikipedia guideline to agree with Hseldon if he is with the consensus. Timeshifter obviously doesn't care about this guideline.

In my opinion all those links in the "See also" section should be gone. Are you going to add each and every link to other wiki pages there? As Timeshifter said, it is meant for pages about the same topic or related topics. May I remind you that this page is about controversies, not electoral fraud. A good see also example: 2004 United States election voting controversies.

It also isn't helpful to go forth and backwards adding and removing editions, that's what consensus is for.

-- Felipec 19:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the 2004 United States election voting controversies seems like a good guideline. Compared to it, this page is poorly edited (completely setting aside the content, the formatting seems generally poor: a lot of short or one-sentence paragraphs, and the like). I think the article could use a full rewrite (okay, setting aside the sections I just fully rewrote yesterday...), inclusion of background (both the fact that election fraud was widely prevalent prior to 2000, that the rules were completely overhauled in 1998, and a quick review of how the system is supposed to operate; and also problems and statements made during the campaign, such as the illegal ads by the CCE which were pro-Calderón). A better organization of the allegations, with a clearer timeline. Rather than quoting each allegation separately, mentioning the categories and linking to those making them, etc. Now, it is of course easy for me to propose such massive work, a bit harder to bring it to fruition. I teach at a university, and we are heading to the end of the semester rush, so I certainly do not foresee having a lot of time for reformatting and reorganzing, let alone dig up more information and references. But I may have some in three or four weeks. Given the recent back and forths perhaps a good temporary solution would be to have a cooling off period for a couple of weeks, leaving the neutrality tag but leaving any major re-write off, and then come back to it. In any case, by mid-December I should have a couple of days during which I could try to reorganize and reformat this article, and try to provide more references and a background. Magidin 21:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you Magidin. I am a student at a university, so I have the same time problem as you. Late december would be better for me to contribute.

About the "See Also" section, I also believe it should be about same topi or related topics, such as elections in Mexico, controversial elections in other countries, and the electoral system of Mexico, and perhaps other countries. A link to the Electoral Fraud article has no place in this section. Hari Seldon 22:40, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I also agree with you Magidin. You are doing a great job, it would be great if you could give some time in mid-December to make these big changes. Maybe then we can focus on the controversies, and of course, an explanation of the whole system seems necessary, maybe even a different article about it. -- Felipec 20:32, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Mark Almond?

I agree with Hseldon, the opinion of Mark Almond is not that relevant here, he was not even an observer in this elections.

If you read the article, he mentions a lot of stuff happening in a lot of parts of the world, and few references to Mexico. The only fact the he mentions is the following:

Although Mexico's election authorities rejected Lopez Obrador's demand for all 42m ballots to be recounted, the partial recount of 9% indicated numerous irregularities. But no echo of indignation has wafted to the streets of Mexico City from western capitals.

A lot of people keep mentioning this one, specially the people that doesn't know how the Mexican elections work. I agree it's a controversial one, but that doesn't mean there was fraud, the reason is simple: Only the ballots with proved irregularities are recounted. Assuming that the other 91% of the ballots which had no proven irregularities actually had irregularities because the 9% with proven irregularities actually had irregularities it's a fallacy.

The rest of the article he actually mentions something related to the election focuses on Salafranca. He makes a lot of claims, but no facts.

So what are we gaining from the opinion of Mark Almond? Are we going to put the opinion of all the world even when they make fallacious conclusions?

-- Felipec 20:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Perhaps it would be more constructive to, instead, show the opinion of Mexican analysts or the opinion of someone directly involved in the election. I understand that including an opinion about the observers is important for the issue of neutrality, but does it add anything to just put any opinion, no matter how far out of context the opinion is taken? At the very least, the article should mention that Mark Almond's opinion is not made as a judgement of the election, but as a judgement about attitudes of western nations. Hari Seldon 22:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the recent edit of that section by Magidin here is fine by me.

He added this mainly: "(but who did not participate as an observer in the Mexican election)"

Here is the original sourced sentence in question:

Mark Almond, an election observer in several countries, questioned the objectivity of José Ignacio Salafranca and some of the mass media.

The reference link for it is:

"Outcry over Mexican elections falling on deaf ears". By Mark Almond, Malaysia Sun, 15 August 2006. Same article in The Guardian is titled: 'People power' is a global brand owned by America. "West promoting 'people power' when it suits". Taipei Times, 19 August 2006. Same Guardian article as above.

This is obviously relevant to the article. The referenced article was reprinted in several mainstream media. It comments directly on the election observers in Mexico. Consensus, as I discussed previously, is about meeting wikipedia guidelines, not about a small group of people agreeing to delete parts of a wikipedia article. See all the relevant wikipedia guideline links in previous discussion.

If you want to further clarify the Mark Almond info, Felipec, then feel free to do so. But it must be verifiable info that you add, and verifiable editing that you do. Meaning it comes from verifiable sources, and not just from you. :See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability - Feel free to add info from other analysts, etc..

Felipec, you are now up to 7 edits total as a member of wikipedia (not including edits on talk pages). All of those edits are on this wikipedia page. Several of your edits have been deletions of sourced material. Anyone can see this for themselves by clicking the link to your contributions, and then clicking the "diff" links next to each of your edits. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Felipec

Felipec, you also tried to label the Global Exchange group as "far left". See that here. People then agreed to use NPOV terms such as right or left leaning. Or no description. --Timeshifter 23:00, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, 2 deletions are several, and please keep in mind that the article is biased, I removed content that was leaning towards the AMLO side, and considering Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, I consider that a good thing. Or do you think we should add each and every piece of sourced material out there?

I did try to label Global Exchange as far left? Please read the Wikipedia article about Global Exchange and you'll see I was not the one who made that label.

And why my contributions have anything to do with this? Please let's discuss the article, not me. Oh, and BTW, I'm Felipe Contreras, not Felipe Calderón, if that's any relevant to you.

-- Felipec 02:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Out of your current total of 7 edits of wikipedia pages, here are 3 vandalizing deletions of highly relevant sourced material: 1. 2. 3.

I see where somebody snuck in the label of "far left" on the Global Exchange wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_Exchange&diff=73806689&oldid=72970664

I just deleted that "far left" sentence there. My edit comment there says: "Deleted sentence about them being 'far left.' That is a POV. The most one could accurately say is 'left-leaning' and that is unnecessary since people can decide for themselves from the description."

Found this on a Global Exchange page: "Global Exchange is ranked in the 'Top 20 Most Trusted NGOs' by readers of the Wall Street Journal." http://store.gxonlinestore.org

It is common on wikipedia talk pages to discuss an editor's biases as shown by their edits and talk page controversies. --Timeshifter 02:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, #2 is not a deletion, it includes #1 deletion, which is a totally valid deletion because it didn't make any point (and I made that comment in the hope that somebody else would put it into context), it didn't even mention it was Ted Lewis the one who said that, and there is no other source of that information. It alone didn't imply anything, but putting it in the context of the Ted Lewis's comment it implies that if there were irregularities the diplomats were not allowed to make comments.

According to Wikipedia vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. So are you implying that I tried to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia? You are making far fetched comments and assuming people are doing things in bad-faith, and that is against Wikipedia guidelines, always assume good-faith. And "highly relevant sourced material" is a relative qualification.

Top 20 Most Trusted NGOs? I can't find any other source of information that mentions that, except Global Exchange of course. But even if that were the case what does it have to do with anything? I did not delete any relevant information that came from Global Exchange.

Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia. For example, adding a personal opinion once is not vandalism — it's just not helpful, and should be removed or restated.

Edits that blank all or part of a biography of a living person may not be vandalism, but instead an effort by the subject of the article to remove inaccurate or biased material.

-- Felipec 06:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The high rating of Global Exchange by Wall Street Journal readers is to further show that it is not correct to label it "far left."

Repeated deletion of the same relevant sourced material is strongly frowned upon in Wikipedia. Here are the 2 items below that you deleted. One of them you deleted twice. I converted the reference links to standard links, so people could see them.

There were 673 international election observers for 130,000 polling stations. Most of them were diplomats, and were therefore not allowed to make public comments. "Standoff At The Zocalo". Sophie McNeill, ZNet, 28 August 2006.

Mark Almond, an election observer in several countries, questioned the objectivity of José Ignacio Salafranca and some of the mass media. "Outcry over Mexican elections falling on deaf ears". By Mark Almond, Malaysia Sun, 15 August 2006. Same article in The Guardian is titled: 'People power' is a global brand owned by America. "West promoting 'people power' when it suits". Taipei Times, 19 August 2006. Same Guardian article as above.

The info is obviously relevant. And both have references to back them up. You will note that an experienced editor, Magidin, did not delete the Mark Almond info. He added more info. That is how it is done in Wikipedia. One clarifies and edits. One does not delete except as a last resort. --Timeshifter 08:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Please do not quote my leaving the information in as evidence that it is relevant. In my editing comment, for example, I stated I thought the relevance was questionable at best. I usually tend to leave things in on a first pass, but that's merely my style, not my evaluation of the relevancy. In addition, since I am hoping to reorganize the entire thing to make it more coherent and less a long list of people and opinions, I left the information in for future reference. Whether this is actually fully relevant is, frankly, something I am nowhere near convinced. The article is a complaint that the media has not paid more attention to the situation, Almond's general feeling that there may be something fishy (a feeling he gets from a distance, not from direct observation or even inquiry into the situation, from what I can tell) and the only thing the quotation seems to add is Salafranca's affiliation (something that could be added directly onto Salafranca). As I said, I am pretty unhappy with the organization of this article as a whole, and I think it needs a thorough reorganization and rewrite. Magidin 13:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

OK. I added some info from the Mark Almond article concerning Salafranca's track record as an election observer. It must be noted that Wikipedia doesn't require its editors to agree with sourced info. Only that the sourced info represents a significant viewpoint. --Timeshifter 14:12, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Flooding the page with information does not help; it only helps make the page more confusing. Now we have a long paragraph regarding elections in Lebanon and Hizbullah in the middle of a page about controversies regarding the mexican elections. The point of putting links to the documents is to allow the readers to go and see the specific points being raised by those making it, while the page only summarizes the highlights. Almond's objection to Salafranca stems from the fact that Salafranca belongs to the Partido Popular, so he views Salafranca as ideologically suspect given the declared winner; that's mentioned. The piece is linked. Why do we need the extra paragraph? Should we start adding a paragraph on Almond too, pointing out any ideological affinity he might have with the PRD? Rather than clarify the flood of tangential information only murkies the issue, IMHO. Magidin 15:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that once stuff is sorted out into more subsections as discussed in my reply to your proposal on reorganization farther down, then things will sort themselves out. Both for us and the readers. --Timeshifter 02:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

What happened next?

What happened after the TEPJF declaration on 5 September? Did Obrador give up? Did the 500,000 protestors just go home? Sure;y that wasn't the end of the story, was it? -- Dominus 09:09, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

López Obrador lifted his sit in, I believe on September 16 or thereabouts. The sit-in had been steadily losing people, and more importantly, eroding the support for López Obrador in particular and the PRD in general, especially among a moderate middle class that they had successfully courted for the election. He formed a "wide political front", and has begun the process of registering it with the IFE so as to get public monies that are assigned to legal, registered, political associations (so much for "to hell with your institutions"). He declared himself the Legitimate President by a show of hands in his last large rally, and will swear himself in on November 20. He says he will have a sort of shadow cabinet, and will go around the country dealing with the people personally. He spent some effort unsuccessfully campaigning for the PRD candidate for governor of his native Tabasco, who lost some weeks ago amid allegations (and this time, lots and lots of verifiable evidence) of electoral violations by all sides. Right now, the discussion among his people is whether to attempt to prevent the swearing-in of Calderón on December 1st by taking over the podium, the way they did with Fox's State of the Union on September 1st. Magidin 18:33, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Here is some info from the wikipedia article about the unpopularity of the sit-in: "Since the rally on July 31, López Obrador's campaign has set up plantones, or encampments, inside the Zócalo and along Paseo de la Reforma, one of Mexico City's main arteries, snarling traffic for weeks. Though 59% of Mexico City residents believe there was fraud, the encampents are widely unpopular, as 65% oppose them, according to a poll taken August 9 by El Universal." http://www.mexiconews.com.mx/19857.html and http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/141694.html The info is in the "protests" section of the wikipedia article. Under the July 31 entry. --Timeshifter 22:20, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Al Giordano, and photos

Reading the Al Giordano piece referenced regarding the photographs, there is one thing that jumps up: he has already reached the conclusion that there was "massive fraud". The piece is not reporting, it is a big op-ed piece expressing this conclusion (if conclusion it be). In addition, the "photographic evidence" is laughable. To wit: the first photograph shows the large poster-sized version of the acta which is, by law, posted outside each polling place after the count is finished and the actas signed by the poll workers and the party representatives. Once posted, it is not only within plain sight, but in easy reach of anyone. Any one with a felt-tip pen can modify the poster. Giordano misidentifies the manta as the "acta" (it is not), and does not show enough of either the manta or the PREP report to be able to determine for sure if they are meant to be reports of the same polling place. In any case, the PREP are not the official results. Compare this to the photo of the second one in [11], which is the acta (not the manta), and where the "fraud" seems to consist of capture error (88 rather than 188). He tells us of a "pattern" based on two examples, and seems to have ignored the fact that, if his first example were correct, it would show Calderón's total also being under-reported in the PREP. As for the second one, you might note that the acta seems to lack the signatures of the party representatives, which together with the obviously amended totals on the third column bring to question the validity of the entire acta. This is "evidence"? Al Giordano is not acting as a reporter here, he is acting as an advocate; and referencing this as "photographic evidence" is a rather large jump. Magidin 15:34, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

In the wikipedia article that particular claim of his is not mentioned. --Timeshifter 02:45, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

First proposal: Archive of portions of talk page

Clearly, we have some frayed nerves and strong opinions, myself included. I want to make two proposals, the first one here, the second below in a different heading.

First, I propose archiving at part of this talk page (see WP:Archive), which seems to be growing rather fast. It seems like at least the first 8 sections are done; the next four sections haven't seen any action since mid-September. This at least, could probably be archived now. I have never done any archiving myself, but the page linked above seems fairly straightforward. My second proposal appears separately, since it involves the actual page. Magidin 17:53, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, archiving is necessary. Hari Seldon 18:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I created an archive page using the instructions at WP:Archive. Which I just edited a little to simplify the process for the next person. The most recent comment in the last section in the archived talk page is from October 27, 2006. The most recent comment in the "Discussion" section in the current talk page is from November 18, 2006. --Timeshifter 02:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Second Proposal: Moratorium and reorganization

My second proposal is to agree to a moratorium of a couple of weeks to let tempers cool off a bit. I don't think we need to set it up as a formal blocking on editing, but I would propose that we refrain from adding substantial new information (going either way) for a bit. Copy-editing, slight reorganization or rephrasing, missing links added, all of them are still good ideas; but perhaps we can simply propose any major new additions in the talk page for now, pending a whole reorganization of this page.

As I mentioned before, I think 2004 United States election voting controversies gives a reasonable template in terms of what we should be aiming for. It is clear that the evaluation of the election mostly breaks along ideological lines (with a few notable exceptions like Jose Woldenberg), which we can make clear to begin with system was completely redesigned and that the only real antecedent to this election is the 2000 election, not the ones run by the Secretaría de Gobernación under the PRI; but that nonetheless the makes the issue of fraud a sensitive and emotional one. We should also clearly distinguish between fraud and irregularities. We should have an opening paragraph, similar to the one in page mentioned above, which summarizes the allegations by broad category (mistakes in the PREP, bias of observers, problems with party observers, etc.) Then a section on background. Then the problems during the campaign (the CCE spots, comments by Fox, etc). Then the summary of the voting and PREP, Conteo Rápido, and election results, the legal complaints, and final resolution. Then we can go on to specifics: complaints on the PREP, allegations of irregularities, the legal complaints (both about the campaign and the voting process), the opening of packages and the TPEJF resolution. Then the recount, and the allegations surrounding it, and then the decision about the TPEJF. These sections would contain the information currently on the page, but be organized in a manner similar to the page on the US election problems. They include specific alegations, and specific links and comments, without the apparent flood of information we currently have here. After that, we can have a section on the general press reaction, op-ed pieces with more generic arguments, the intellectuals' letters, and so on, and some of the polls on the general opinion in Mexico (there were several that were very explicit on the breakdown relative to how people voted, e.g. that most but not all people who voted for López Obrador believed there was fraud, that most but not all people who voted for Calderón were happy with the partial recount; we should aim to find polls like that which show the clear breakdown along ideological and partizan lines).

After that we can have the sections on the organized opposition and the photographs, which seem to me to be better edited and reasonably so within the context (of course, those are easier, since we all agree that the actions happened, whereas the previous sections are about allegations). The issue with the See Also section can be fixed if instead of simple links with no comment (which is, granted, the usual) we do something more along the lines of the way it is done in, say, Squaring the circle (to name one I notice recently).

All of this is a major undertaking, but I honestly think that this page is a bit of a mess, even setting aside issues of neutrality. Alas, I certainly do not have the time to do this right now, and I am not positive I will have sufficient time later (of course, I'm not the only one who can do this). We should probably begin, after a cooling-off period, with the background and campaign, which should be straightforward and unlikely to be contentious. Clearly the most contentious bit will be the section on the allegations, but even there I think that a more coherent organization of the claims and counterclaims will go a long way towards making this seems more balanced. Of course, it is possible (if not likely) that the way I envision this is improbably or impossible to actually bring to fruition. It's happened before. But I think we should try, when there is enough time to devote to it wholesale rather than bits and pieces at a time.Magidin 18:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you wrote. I understand you may not have time to work on it soon. But I have time now and will start adding subsections to break down the allegations by topic. That way the related claims and counterclaims will be in the correct sections so that readers can find stuff easily using the table of contents. We can always rearrange stuff at any time. It is much easier to do once stuff is sorted out. --Timeshifter 02:38, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

My one request would be to stick to reorganizing and copy-editing, rather than introduce new references or allegations. I think we need a short cooling off period before addressing what should be in or out. Magidin 13:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, reorganization will be very helpful, and a cooling off period would be great too. -- Felipec 20:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Broad categories for the reorganization

As far as reorganizing the page, here are a few comments. I believe the allegations should be broadly broken down into five kinds:

1. Irregularities during the campaign/about illegal campaigning. There were some allegations during the campaign, and some after the election. Undue influence, the CCE spots, "dirty campaigning", false accusations, etc.

2. Irregularities during the vote. This is the category where I believe there were very few, if any, complaints: I am talking about turning people away, people not being allowed to vote because they are not in the registry, etc. The only complaints I am aware of were people being turned away from special polling places (for people voting outside their district) because the latter ran out of ballots. The law specifies both location, number, and number of ballots in those polling places. But if there are other such allegations of problems during the voting, they would go here.

3. Irregularities in the counting. This is where allegations of ballot-stuffing, vote-stealing, etc. would go. In general any difference between the votes actually cast and the totals as they appear in the corresponding acta (including the "ballots in the dumpster" and the like).

4. Irregularities in the reporting. This is where the allegations of cyberfraud or differences between what the actas say and what the PREP and/or official count said.

5. Irregularities during the controversy. This would be unauthorized reopening of the ballot packages, unauthorized recounts, problems during the recount, etc.

I believe that most foreign observers were mostly concerned with points 2 and perhaps 3; that is, the actual voting, and perhaps the counting. We probably want them in roughly chronological order within each category, with also a broad chronology of when any particular kind of allegation may have surfaced: for example, there's been allegations of type 1 throughout (and some where addressed during the campaign, and by the TPEJF later). López Obrador and much of the foreign commentary from independent news sources focused initially on problems of type 4. Only later the allegations shifted to type 3 (so perhaps type 4 should go first, despite it "logically" being later than type 3). Type 5 began during the official count and continued until the TPEJF ruled. Magidin 22:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

--Timeshifter 04:55, 22 November 2006 (UTC). The broad categories sound good as a start. May need more, or may need to refine the words used, and so on. May be difficult to combine them with more chronological elements though. Subcategories by topic can be added too. One just adds more equal signs at the beginning and end of the headings: = == === ==== . Something like this below. Headings will be refined. Gave some examples of subheadings for the first main category. Just some preliminary ideas. I will keep adding subcategories to this map below over the next few days. I may rearrange things completely. Feel free to start your own map after mine, and we will see how we can integrate them. We are pretty much agreed that the order of the rest of the article is fine. The task ahead is on how to reorder the irregularities section.

Irregularities

Illegal campaigning.

CCE spots

Vote buying

False accusations

Foreign influence

Voting

Counting

Recounting

Reporting.

During the controversy

I rearranged the main article a little so that all the alleged irregularities are in one overall category. Also I created a new recount section that only describes the timing and mechanics of the recount as has been done for the PREP, Quick Count, and Official Count sections. But without any details of the irregularities. I took out the specific claims of irregularities out of the election observers section, and put them in the main irregularities category for future sorting.

This way all the irregularities are in one section, and we can concentrate on breaking down that section. --Timeshifter 05:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

English and Spanish Names

As a general rule, I think that if you are going to include both Spanish and English names of an organization, you should put the actual name first, and the translation later. Thus, for example, when the page first refers to Alianza Cívica, I think the name should be in Spanish with the English translation in parenthesis. Future references can be either to the Spanish name alone, or to the English translation alone. Same goes for "Conteo Rápido"/Quick Count, etc. Magidin 19:06, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. Future references should go to the English translation in my opinion. Otherwise most native English speakers will get confused. --Timeshifter 21:11, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Calls for election reform

I am not sure the section on calls for election reform belong in this article; this is about the controversies on the election, and it mostly focuses on allegations of irregularities during the counting (though there will be some on the campaign and pre-campaign issues when we rewrite it). The article in the El Heraldo de México is not proposing anything that would change the way in which votes are cast or counted, nor in the way allegations or recounts are handled; I don't know if any party has proposed changes there. The PRD has not proposed any change in the law that would allow a full recount, for example. Perhaps a paragraph might eventually belong in the section on irregularities during the campaign. Discussion on a possible second round in future elections is, I think, well beyond the scope of this article. Magidin 19:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I moved that section so that it is now a subsection of "Results of opposition." That should make it more relevant. Also I just rewrote it to make the connection to the election irregularities controversy clearer. I connected Salafranca more clearly to the issue by pointing out that he observed the July 2 election. Also, a runoff election is a full recount in a sense. Because in many nations a runoff election does not occur unless the top 2 candidates are within a certain number of percentage points of each other. In Nicaragua there is no runoff election if there is five percent or more difference in votes. Salafranca's comment "greater democratic legitimacy" is directly connected to the alleged irregularities and the questions they caused in many people's minds about the legitimacy of the July 2, 2006 democratic process.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_election,_2006#Electoral_reforms_in_2000

From that section:

The electoral reforms introduced in January 2000, as a result of the pact between the PLC and the FSLN, established new rules for the contending parties in the elections. The required percentages to win the Presidential Election was reduced from 45 to 40 percent. The electoral law states that a participating candidate must obtain a relative majority of at least 40 percent of the vote to win a presidential election. However, a candidate may win by obtaining at least 35 percent of the vote, with at least a five percent margin over the second place finisher. The law also established a second-round runoff election if none of the candidates won in the first round. --Timeshifter 21:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

"A runoff election is a full recount in a sense." I'm sorry, but that is rather a large stretch. In fact, in very close multi-party elections with very polarizing candidates, that is seldom the case. It is well known that the results of an election with more than 2 candidates need not, in any way, shape, or form, have anything to do with pairwise elections among those candidates. See Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, Condorcet's Paradox, Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem, . You can have an election in which the Condorcet loser wins an full election, or one in which the Condorcet winner loses the election. Runoffs have little to do with recounts. The proposals for runoffs have to do with legitimacy and gobernability, not with alleged irregularities. The fact that Salafranca observed the elections in 2006 does not make his suggesting reform or a second round relevant to an article about the controversies surrounding the 2006 election, and especially not at length. At best, it seems to me that the most it would deserve is a sentence saying that in the aftermath the political parties and many observers have suggested changing the system from an FPGP-election to a two-round/runoff system; in which case, since the controversies surrounded the counting of the votes and the recounts, another sentence noting the changes that may have been suggested in that arena (counting, oversight, handling complaints, hangling recounts, etc); or that no change to the procedures for counting the votes or for recounts or investigating alleged irregularities has been proposed (if that is the case). Any discussion about changing the law may be the result of the controversies, but it is not part of the controversies, the subject of this article, regardless of who proposes the changes. Magidin 23:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

"Any discussion about changing the law may be the result of the controversies, but it is not part of the controversies, the subject of this article, regardless of who proposes the changes." That is your opinion. I disagree. I believe the controversies include all aspects of the election process, not just the specifics of the current process in question. People are questioning everything. The same thing is happening in the USA (the call for runoff elections, proportional representation, Condorcet, and fundamental changes of all kinds). The election controversies go very deep in both countries. To try to narrow the range of those controversies is a POV fork in my opinion. Wikipedia says that all significant sides of controversies should be covered. The "results of the opposition" section was initiated by either Felipec or Hseldon, I believe. I agreed. And some of these calls for reform are a result of the opposition to the July 2 general election irregularities (alleged). Also the calls for funding limits, time limits, and transparency are related in some ways to the claims of illegal campaigning during the run-up to the July 2 election. --Timeshifter 00:10, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

People are questioning everything? Really? This article should include all the aspects of elections? Shall we throw in a couple Ph.D. thesis worth of discussing the different electoral systems? All significant sides of the controversy should be covered, yes. The question is whether people talking about whether a different electoral system should be used is not part of the "controversy" about the election; it is, at best, a result of the controversy. Should there be a section on eliminating the electoral college in the article about the controversies of the 2000 U.S. election? No; at most, it would deserve a very quick mention. Likewise here. Citing Salafranca in extenso on the excuse that he was an observer seems unwarranted. Now, controversies about elections may cover a lot, but this article is "Mexican general election 2006 controversies", not "Mexican elections controversies in general, and everything that might be remotely connected to this". As I said, saying that in the wake of the problems there have been discussions about these things, and links thereby, okay, maybe. Why is Salafranca being singled out? As a sly way to undermine the fact that he said he thought the elections were clean. Magidin 01:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Why would one not talk about the electoral college controversy during the 2000 and 2004 elections as part of their wikipedia pages? It was talked about a lot here in the USA during those times. I am American, so I can vouch for that. It is very much a part of the 2000 and 2004 election controversies. Salafranca is very much a part of the 2006 Mexican election controversies. People frequently tried to dismiss all claims of irregularities by just saying that Salafranca's EU observers had spoken. Wikipedia puts out the significant sides of the controversies, and lets the readers decide. Wikipedia does not ostracize particular viewpoints. That would not be NPOV. Of course, there is not enough room for Ph.D theses on wikipedia pages. Everything is summarized in wikipedia pages. And links are provided to further info. I notice that you have worked a lot on some math-related wikipedia pages. Things are not as clearcut in politics as in math. I doubt Condorcet methods were discussed much before, during, or after the July 2, 2006 Mexican election. It may not even merit a link in the "See also" section. But a link to Voting systems is merited since changes in the Mexican electoral system were discussed before, during, and after the July 2, 2006 election. And Condorcet methods are discussed in that overall article on voting systems. --Timeshifter 06:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[It is fine to break up my comment in order to comment on it, but please leave a copy of my unbroken comment too. I pasted a copy of it back in. --Timeshifter 21:03, 26 November 2006 (UTC)]

Why would one not talk about the electoral college controversy during the 2000 and 2004 elections as part of their wikipedia pages?

Not as part of the pages on controversies, because they are not germane to the topic of the page. Magidin

It was talked about a lot here in the USA during those times. I am American, so I can vouch for that.

So am I (just so you know). I know. The discussion happens in cycles. The same is true in Mexico. Talk of a second round was flying before the 2000 election. And talk is happening in Mexico now, to an even lesser degree than it happened then. But it is not part of the controversies of the 2006 election; mentioning that talk of electoral reform followed on the heels of the controversy, okay. In extenso discussion of the pros and cons of such reform, and quoting in extenso someone who is not Mexican on the excuse that he was mentioned earlier on the page as endorsing the election, that's not germane to the controversies either. And in any case, since this is the conclusion of a report by the EU team, if you are going to mention it, it should be attributed as such. Magidin

It is very much a part of the 2000 and 2004 election controversies.

Curious, then, that they are not mentioned in those pages, no? Why not go and try to add such sections to the page on 2004? As you can see, they are not there right now. Why? Because they don't really belong on the pages on the controversies. On the page on the 2000 U.S. presidential election it is not even mentioned in the section on Consequences. This might belong on the main page of the 2006 Mexican election; maybe. It might deserve a quick mention in this page. But this page is not the place for a long discussion on this; it is not part of the controversies. Magidin

Salafranca is very much a part of the 2006 Mexican election controversies.

His contemporary statements about the election, yes. His observations of the election, yes. His discussion, in an interview five months later, as representative of a team which is the one who issued the recommendations, on possible changes to the Mexican electoral system for future elections, quoted in extenso? Let me quote you: that's your opinion. I disagree. Moreover, the articles quotes make it clear that this was not Salafranca speaking on his own initiative. Rather, as head of the observation team, he was in charge of presenting recommendations issued by the team as a whole. Magidin

People frequently tried to dismiss all claims of irregularities by just saying that Salafranca's EU observers had spoken.

So... are you saying that quoting Salafranca on reform is a way to undermine the earlier quote of his about not seeing problems in the election? Magidin

Wikipedia puts out the significant sides of the controversies, and lets the readers decide. Wikipedia does not ostracize particular viewpoints.

You still are missing the main point. This is not part of the controversy. Magidin

That would not be NPOV. Of course, there is not enough room for Ph.D theses on wikipedia pages. Everything is summarized in wikipedia pages. And links are provided to further info. I notice that you have worked a lot on some math-related wikipedia pages. Things are not as clearcut in politics as in math. I doubt Condorcet methods were discussed much before, during, or after the July 2, 2006 Mexican election.

A two round system was discussed a lot during the run-off to the 2000 Mexican election; the fact that López Obrador might very well lose a 2-round system on the strength of anti-PRD votes from the PRI was also discussed quite a bit leading to the 2006 election. But the point is, the discussion going on now may be considered part of the aftermath of the controversies; a quick mention at the end might be in order. But this is not part of the controversy, and so there should not be a lengthy section on it in this page. Especially not if its main purpose is simply an attempt to discredit a source that was not critical of the election. You need to distinguish between what is part of the controversy, and what is a tangential consequence of the controversy; tangential, because this talk always follows close elections. The PRD talked a lot about it in 2000, and kept it up, right up until Jospin lost to Le Penn in France; then, all of a sudden, it did not seem like such a hot idea. Magidin

It may not even merit a link in the "See also" section. But a link to Voting systems is merited since changes in the Mexican electoral system were discussed before, during, and after the July 2, 2006 election. And Condorcet methods are discussed in that overall article on voting systems. --Timeshifter 06:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I am confused. Did I say you should not include a link to different voting systems in the "See also" section? Not that I recall. What I said is that in extenso discussions about talk of reform, and in extenso quoting of Salafranca (which is merely done as a way to undermine his earlier comments; it seems to be a pattern, as it happens: you've gone to great lengths, it seems to me, to try to undermine his contemporary conclusions about the election. Why is that?) is out of place in a page about the controversies of the election. Magidin 19:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I really think you have just proved my points. You haven't really disagreed with me that all these things were discussed as part of this election. And we agree that we don't want a long thesis on anything in this wikipedia page. There is not room. So it is a matter of balance and presenting all sides fairly. There is room to do so. You are desperate to prevent Salafranca from being discredited in my opinion. Even by inference. I just throw out the significant viewpoints, and let the readers decide. What you are trying to do now is what Felipec and Hseldon were trying to do before. Which is selective emphasis on certain POVs. By blocking material you don't like. That is not allowed in wikipedia pages. I have no fear of all the viewpoints getting out. I haven't blocked anything that you 3 have wanted in the article, I believe. By the way, out of curiosity, why does your user page say: "This user is able to contribute with a professional level of English." That is why I assumed you were not American. Are you a naturalized American? --Timeshifter 21:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

My reply, interspersed. Magidin

You are desperate to prevent Salafranca from being discredited in my opinion. Even by inference.

I think it is dishonest to do so the way it has been done so far. First, someone who wasn't even there was quoted authoritatively, and he was refered to giving the impression he was there, to discredit Salafranca. Now, Salafranca is mentioned apparently in order to undermine his earlier mention. And you seem to be agreeing that the intention of that quote was to discredit Salafranca. If that be the case, then it is a dishonest attempt at discrediting him; trying to present it as Neutral POV and then saying "let the readers decide" is disingenious at best. It is being done on the sly, by presenting comments that should not be in the page in the first place since they are not germane to the subject matter of the page. The EU team, as a whole, is recommending a number of changes for future elections. It is the second attempt at discrediting him in a questionable way. Magidin

There was no plot on my part to hide anything concerning Mark Almond. Almond may not have been in Lebanon either. I just pointed out Mark Almond's opinion because Mark Almond is also an election observer. You are bordering on a personal attack on me. That is not allowed in Wikipedia talk pages. I suggest you assume a good faith effort on my part. That is what Wikipedia recommends. Along with being polite. There is nothing wrong with presenting opinions about Salafranca from Mark Almond and you know it. You are filibustering. --Timeshifter 23:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

First, let me apologize for what you perceived to be slanders; this discussion overlapped another discussion elsewhere on the same subject, with someone who was very definitely purposely misinterpreting the report, and it is likely my annoyance was at least partly transfered onto this discussion. But I would request you assume good faith effort on my part, too.

I expressed concerns, and I explained why I have those concerns. The moratorium was requested to cool tempers down; given your reaction to my concerns, it would seem to have been justified. Sorry, but you went overboard; and yes, I went overboard as well. My sincere apologies for that. It tends to happen. Hence the suggestion of a cooling-off period; it was clear you were also on edge earlier, as evidenced by the labeling of an edit you did not agree with as "vandalism" (which would seem to violate the guidelines stated in WP:Vandalism). Re-read the first paragraph on this section, where I expressed my concerns. Was I mad or trying to "block material [I] disagree with"? As it is, the article it is taken from makes the quote ambiguous. It can be read as making suggestions about the present election; that a runoff now would give legitimacy to this result. Note: this is the fault of the source you are quoting from. Read that way, it is a sly (and dishonest) way to undermine the earlier assertions that the election was seen as fair by the EU observers. Singling out Salafranca with the ambiguous quotation is part of that as well (and this is what that other person, elsewhere, was doing explicitly; saying earlier comments by Salafranca were now null and void since Salafranca had expressed made comments now suggesting the election lacked legitimacy). Since the actual report is now available [12], whether or not the extensive quote belongs here (and I still think it does not), for now it should at least be rewritten to make it clear that, as one of several suggestions for future reform the EU team, as a whole, suggested replacing the current system with a two-round runoff presidential election (thought the report does not say so in the Recommendations section, I suspect they are thinking in terms of the French Presidential election).

As for "and you know it", again, I disagree. I do not see why the opinion of someone who seems to have a personal axe to grind against Salafranca is relevant, especially if all Almond has to offer for his opinion is past disagreement and no direct observation. He expressly states in his piece that he is basing his opinion on a vacuum, since he is complaining that there is no information. I think the opinion is dubiously relevant, and that is my honest opinion about the issue. When I said "[w]hether [his opinion] is actually fully relevant is, frankly, something I am nowhere near convinced" you added information I thought was more tangential than helpful. I am sure it was a good-faith effort; I don't like it much; too bad for me, apparently. In any case, you can see that the paragraph is still there, completely untouched by me despite my continuing disagreement with its relevance and with its presence.

Which is one of the reasons why I found particularly irksome that I after raised my concerns on the Talk page, in what I think was a reasonable manner by expressing my concerns and why I had them, I was accused of "blocking material [I] don't like". That was unwarranted, unfounded, and personal. If you found the comments that followed "impolite", then I am sorry; I found the ones you made ("desperate", "blocking") both personal and impolite for my part. If it was in response to a perceived personal slight, rest assured none was intended. The reference to "sly" in regards to Salafranca being singled out are from the original piece.

What I suspect is that, because you say you do not follow the Mexican Spanish-language coverage of the election and the controversies, you are relying on the English-language coverage. As was pointed out (e.g. by Almond), the mainstream English-language media is not covering the issue very much. Hardly surprising: mainstream media seldom covers the details and back-and-forths of any foreign (i.e., not in the country where that media resides) election. Even the 2000 U.S. Election did not receive that much coverage (in terms of allegations and counterallegations) in foreign media as one might think by looking at the U.S. media. In this case, you have to rely on non-mainstream media outlets such as Narco News. Many of these are news outlets with a very clear editorial policy; they are, to some extent, much like Fox News but with a different agenda. No matter how impartial one may try to be, if all one knew about the war in Iraq is what one heard in Fox News, one's view would naturally be skewed. I suspect that is what is happening here, and that is the likely source of the imbalance; we have quotes from left-leaning sources like La Jornada (often refered to as "the official newspaper outlet of the PRD" in Mexico), and as "balance" we have the occassional references to El Universal and Reforma, two newspapers that are widely considered to be merely neutral or balanced (e.g., Miguel Ángel Granados[13], a stalwart of the PRD and well-known leftist political commentator, writes a daily column in Reforma; in fact, he left La Jornada for Reforma, because he felt the former laid down the line editorially; sorry, no English wikipedia article on Granados Chapa). Because those are the sources that these non-mainstream sources are quoting and pointing to. I am hoping to help rectify this by providing much more sourcing and context via Reforma and El Universal, but they both have lousy search features on the Web, which is why I cannot spend the time right now to do so. Magidin 18:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I just throw out the significant viewpoints, and let the readers decide. What you are trying to do now is what Felipec and Hseldon were trying to do before. Which is selective emphasis on certain POVs.

Shall I quote you again, "in your opinion"? Almond's lack of direct observation was omitted. Al Giordano presents incorrect information and misrepresents photographs, but is taken as a reliable source. You present a quote which is out of context and misrepresents the statements, and then you wash your hands by saying "Let the readers decide". In a page where there is an ongoing disagreement, and where a simple moratorium was requested, you went ahead and added the information. I raised my objection in the Talk page, and I am the one with "selective emphasis on certain POVs"? Pull the other one, it's got bells on. You are giving much too much weight to what is a minority view of the subject, as evidenced by the polls you yourself have quoted. Fine; that's the side that you are clearly invested in. But when that predilection was questioned, first Felipec's opinion was questionable for lack of experience. You were happy to applaud my participation when you thought I was on your side. But then sly comments about my experience perhaps not being useful because this is a political page and claims I am somehow "blocking" material I haven't even edited, because you don't like what I'm saying. An objection to what is at best tangential being presented as germane is not a violation of NPOV. Neither is objecting to underhanded attempts at discrediting a certain majority POV (that of the EU observers) by quoting people who were not there, or material that is at best tangential and likely irrelevant to the subject matter of this page. Quite the opposite, in fact. Magidin

The EU opinion is not a majority opinion. They were only 70 international observers out of 673 international observers. It is you who are misrepresenting the truth. A request for a moratorium on more info being put in the article was not agreed to by me. You say you are not trying to block certain info from being in the article. Yet when I don't honor your request for a moratorium, then you get mad. As for the rest of your attempts at slandering me, see my previous reply about the wikipedia policy on personal attacks.

If you want to add an equal amount of counterclaims to the article to balance the claims of irregularities, then feel free to do so. Add even more than that. I have never called for a moratorium on your contributions, nor on Hseldon's or Felipec's. Put 51% counterclaims to 39% claims of irregularities. To mirror the polls:

Nationwide polls: A poll released July 27 by El Universal found that 48 percent wanted a full recount, and 28 percent were against it. [3] 39 percent of Mexicans believe fraud occurred according to a nationwide poll of registered voters taken August 25 through 28, 2006 by the newspaper El Universal. 51 percent believed the election was clean. [4] [5]

According to a Sept. 8-30, 2006 Ipsos/AP poll of citizens of 9 nations Mexicans had the lowest confidence that their votes are counted accurately. [1] Angus Reid Global Scan, Canada, writes: "87 per cent of Canadian respondents are very or somewhat confident that votes in their elections are counted accurately. France was next on the list with 85 per cent, followed by Germany with 84 per cent, South Korea with 83 per cent, Britain with 79 per cent, and Spain with 75 per cent. The lowest level of trust was registered in Mexico with 60 per cent, Italy with 65 per cent and the United States with 66 per cent." [2] --Timeshifter 00:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The last poll you quote is not really relevant. The "minority opinion" I refered to is the opinion that the results of the 2006 presidential election in Mexico were the result of fraud and/or irregularities, and that the international observers are somehow suspect. So the different levels of confidence in the electoral institutions in sundry countries is hardly relevant to that issue. The first poll you quote is also somewhat off. There is a difference between "wanting a full recount" and believing the result is inaccurate. A good portion of people wated a full recount to show the result was accurate and "to shut up" López Obrador. For example, [14] gives a poll on July 22nd, in which 53% say they believe the elections clean; of course, hardly surprising, it broke along voting lines. A poll by Ipsos/Bisma on July 27 (same date, same polling firm, as the one you give for recount), reported in [15] gave 52.5% of the population as believing Calderón won the election. A door-to-door poll by Reforma published on September 6 gave 74% approval to the Tribunal's decision to declare Calderón the winner, 71% saying Calderón's triumph was "legitimate", 72% saying the Tribunal was both just and impartial when it issued its decision. (Again, it broke along party lines; PAN supporters broke in favor of just and impartial by 94% to 4%, PRI supporters by 71% to 22%, PRD supporters by 16% to 80%, and independents by 73% to 25%). You can find that poll in Reforma; it is in Spanish, but it should be easy to interpret, at [16]. I do not know if you need a subscription to read it (I have one). The only poll that seems relevant is the second one you quote directly addressing cleanliness of the elections, but it predates the dissemination in the mainstream Mexican press of the details of the PRDs requests to the Tribunal and their street blockades. The fact that they failed to ask for a full recount or for the nullification of the election affected public opinion perceptibly. Compare to the 74% approval to the Tribunal's decision declaring Calderón the winner, a big jump. Magidin 18:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

By blocking material you don't like.

For crying out loud. How have I "blocked" anything? Have I removed the text I am objecting to? Have I removed any text that I have found questionable? Did I remove the Almond quote you were so fond of? There, I added the information that he did not participate in the election and thus did not observe the events or the person he criticized; was that "selective emphasis on certain POVs"? Or was it rather the removal of selective emphasis on a particular POV, that of "let's discredit the observers"? Now, I have a disagreement, and I am trying to hash it out in the Talk pages prior to any editing. I have not even touched the section at issue. How am I blocking something? What I said was: "I am not sure the section on calls for election reform belong in this article[.]" Magidin

See previous replies. --Timeshifter 23:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

That is not allowed in wikipedia pages. I have no fear of all the viewpoints getting out. I haven't blocked anything that you 3 have wanted in the article, I believe. By the way, out of curiosity, why does your user page say: "This user is able to contribute with a professional level of English." That is why I assumed you were not American. Are you a naturalized American? --Timeshifter 21:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Not that it is in any way relevant, but the reason it says that is because it is true. No, I am not naturalized. Which is completely irrelevant, as is your nationality or how you came by it (but you decided it was important to bring it up). Magidin 23:21, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

If you were not in the USA during the 2000 or 2004 election cycle, then you may not have gotten the full discourse on all the discussion about electoral reform during those election cycles. That is why I brought up the point that I was an American. Were you or were you not in the USA during those election cycles? I could care less whether you are American or not. By the way, you almost completely ignored the quotes below that disprove a previous point of yours about those electoral reform issues not being discussed in the 2000 election wikipedia article. --Timeshifter 23:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

The point (again) is that the pages on the controversies of the 2004 U.S. election do not include in extenso discussions of proposals for future changes. Why? Because such discussion does not belong on the page on the controversies. The quotes you provided were for the main page on the election, not on pages on controversies about the election. I did say that in my reply. My point was that detailed discussion about electoral reform is not part of the discussion on the controversies; it is not in the pages on the 2004 U.S. election controversies because it does not belong there, it should not be on the pages on the 2006 Mexican election controversies. A brief mention in "Consequences", perhaps. A more detailed discussion on the main page on the election, probably. But this is the page on the controversies, not on the discussions about electoral reform.

As I understand it, the point of having a separate page on the Controversies is so that the article can be both more detailed and more focused than the general article on the election. The problem I see here is not with details, it is with focus. This is not the main page on the election, but rather an "auxiliary" page on the Controversies. Which is why I think that discussion of the suggestions by the EU team for future changes of the full electoral procedure is not really relevant. Some of the points they raise in their report (for example, the fact that the IFE was not clear in explaining what the PREP and the Quick Count were, as we were able to see in this very page) which directly address issues of controversy would, in my opinion, be warranted. The proposal for a second round, as well as the majority of their 47 recommendations, does not seem to agree with the focus of this page.Magidin 18:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

--Timeshifter 21:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC). Also, here are some excerpts of the 2000 U.S. election wikipedia article:

This election marked the third time in United States history that a candidate had definitively won the Electoral College and thus the Presidency without winning a plurality of the popular vote. (This also happened in the elections of 1876 and 1888.)

Nonetheless, embarrassment about the Florida vote uncertainties led to widespread calls for electoral reform in the United States and ultimately to the passage of the Help America Vote Act, which authorized the United States federal government to provide funds to the states to replace their mechanical voting equipment with electronic voting equipment. However, this has led to new controversies including the lack of paper-based methods of verification and the complexity of testing required to certify correct operation of computer-based systems.

Such a close national contest contributed to the controversy of the election. This was the first time since 1888 that a candidate who clearly did not receive a plurality of the popular vote received a majority of the Electoral College (see United States Electoral College, losing the popular vote). (Due to the unusual ballot in Alabama in 1960, it is unclear how much of the popular vote in that state can be attributed to Kennedy and hence whether Kennedy beat Nixon in the popular vote.)

Since the Presidential Election was so close and hotly contested in Florida, the United States Government and state governments pushed for election reform to be prepared by the 2004 United States Presidential Election. Many of Florida's year 2000 election night problems stemmed from voting machine issues like rejected ballots, "hanging chad", and the possibly confusing "butterfly ballot". An opportunistic solution to these problems was assumed to be the installation of modern electronic voting machines.

Electronic voting was initially touted by many as a panacea for the ills faced during the 2000 election. In years following, such machines were questioned for a suspicious lack of a paper trail, less than ideal security standards, low tolerance for software or hardware problems, and being manufactured by companies which had openly supported Republican candidates. The United States Presidential Election of 2000 spurred the debate about election and voting reform, but it did not end it. See Electronic voting: problems.

--Timeshifter 22:10, 26 November 2006 (UTC). The 5 wikipedia articles on the 2004 U.S. election controversies have much more info than the 2006 Mexican election controversies article we are working on.

• 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities
• 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, exit polls
• 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, vote suppression
• 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines
• 2004 U.S. presidential election recounts and legal challenges

Nobody is arguing that the amount of information is too much. There are concerns about the organization, the lack of representability of the majority POV in the article, and an apparent predilection for sources closely tied to one particular candidate (López Obrador). We are not talking about the size of the article, but whether an in extenso discussion about potential changes to the electoral system is germane to the subject matter of this page. I brought up the pages on the 2004 election because you brought up the 2004 elections and calls for change, and I pointed out that this information is not on the pages on the controversy, because it is not part of the controversy, exactly the same argument I am making of this page. Did you notice that the talk about proposals and calls for reform is in the main article on the election, not an article about the controversies? And that the mention is brief, to the point, and without quoting in extenso specific people or specific calls? Magidin 23:21, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no separate page on 2000 election controversies, and you probably know it. --Timeshifter 23:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

So there is room to discuss more of the claims and counterclaims in the 2006 article. I can't read the Spanish-language reports written by the Civic Alliance. Their reports of irregularities are in their articles linked from this page:

• http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/mexico/electionreports.html

The MS Word doc file version of their reports can also be opened with WordPad or the free Word Viewer. --Timeshifter 21:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Again, the point I am discussing is not whether there is room or not for discussing more claims and counterclaims. The point is that discussions about future changes to the electoral system are not claims, and they are not counterclaims, and they are not controversies about the election. Magidin 23:21, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I guess you are going to just completely ignore the material I quoted from the 2000 election article. As in "Please don't confuse me with the facts." --Timeshifter 23:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe the discussion in extenso does not belong in this page. If it belongs anywhere, it belongs on the main page of the election, just as it does in the main pages for the 2000 and the 2004 U.S. Elections. That is my point. That was my point. That continues to be my point. This is meant to be a more focused page, the narrower focus to allow for more detail. Expanding the focus to include tangentially related material undermines that purpose. Magidin 18:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Electoral reform is discussed on the 2004 election controversies pages. I could leave quotes here, but I won't. There is no separate page for the 2000 election controversies. So electoral reform was discussed on the main 2000 page. Electoral reform was not discussed on the 2004 main page. --Timeshifter 12:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The only occurrences of "reform" I can find in 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities is in the section on the challenges in Congress:

Numerous Democratic members of Congress spoke on the importance of election reform, announced initiatives for constitutional protection of the vote, and called for election integrity protection against conflicts of interest, listing problems with the process of the vote in Ohio and other states. Numerous Republican members of Congress spoke against the objection, calling it an obstruction of the democratic process and pointing out that Bush won Ohio's vote by over 118,000 votes according to the recount. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) denounced the objection, calling Boxer and Jones the "X-Files Wing" of the Democratic Party.

and the very brief mention:

Debate continues regarding election reform, with a number of bills aimed at eliminating some of these irregularities expected in the 109th Congress. Community concern about the integrity of US election procedures is continuing and may bring about reform in several states.

The first mention relates to the objections raised during the certification of the electoral votes; that's part of the controversy. Only the second brief mention matches the flavor of the EU's recommendation for this page. There is one other occurrence of "reform", but it is related to the Diebold suit in California prior to the election. The mention is brief, non-specific, non-attributed, and in passing. Exactly how I think such mentions should be limited in this page, if it is to appear. If I missed another one, please tell me where it is.Magidin 13:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Did you also check the other 4 pages on the 2004 election controversies? Also, the 2000 page has more info. See the quotes higher up on this talk page. --Timeshifter 15:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes. There are no mentions in 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, exit polls or 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, vote suppression. The only mention in 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines is to describe someone as an election reform activist. No mention of election reform in 2004 U.S. presidential election recounts and legal challenges, nor in 2004 U.S. election voting controversies, Florida or 2004 U.S. election voting controversies, Ohio. There are brief mentions of rallies and talks about election reform and links to articles with "reform" on their title in Timeline of the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities. I am aware that the main page on the 2000 election has more info. The main page on the Mexican general election, 2006 should probably have more info in a section on the Aftermath. A brief mention that in the aftermath of the protests and controversies there has been discussion of reforms may be adequate for this page; but a discussion of who, where, what, or why such reforms are or are being proposed is out of place in the page on controversies because they are not controversies. It's not that they are opinions I dislike or like (most of what the EU is proposing is stuff I have been arguing in favor of for over 10 years). It's that the suggestions for change are not part of the controversy. See "Stay on Topic" in Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles. As long as I am mentioning that page, I may try the "personal copy" suggestion as part of my continuing efforts to cool things down prior to the major rewriting. Magidin 17:00, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The electoral reforms info makes more sense in the context of the alleged irregularities they are related to. That is why they make sense on the 2000 page, because that is the page in which the irregularities were discussed. Same for 2004 discussions of electoral reforms. You will notice that the 2004 controversies required several pages. So if we need more pages for the Mexican controversies we can do that. Same for electoral reforms. I don't see that being a problem yet, because I haven't seen many electoral reforms proposed that are a direct result of this 2006 election. The 2004 pages are an ongoing project. Because the discussion in the US media had a large increase after the compilation report of 2004 irregularities written by Robert Kennedy in June 2006 [17]. --Timeshifter 17:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

"The electoral reforms info makes more sense in the context of the alleged irregularities they are related to." Well, yes. That's why I said:

Some of the points they raise in their report (for example, the fact that the IFE was not clear in explaining what the PREP and the Quick Count were, as we were able to see in this very page) which directly address issues of controversy would, in my opinion, be warranted.

In other words, when we get into the detail of charges of cyberfraud, or that the results of the Quick Count were manipulated, the EU's report stating that there was widespread confusion about what the PREP and Quick Count were is germane because it helps explain why the charges were levied and believed.

I disagree with your reasoning on the 2000 page in any case. I think they belong in the 2000 page because they are a facet of the 2000 election, just like discussion of reforms in Mexico are a face of the 2006 Mexican election, and probably belong on the main page on the 2006 Mexican election. In the 2000 page they are mentioned twice: once in the introduction, as a consequence of the final decision and as concluding remarks of the introduction, not as part of the controversies. It is not mentioned again until Response to the problems. Once again, the mention there is unattributed, brief, and generic, and not in the context of the irregularities themselves but in the context of the aftermath of the controversies. The fact that the 2004 controversies required several pages and are an ongoing project does not detract from my point: they do not address the aftermath of the controversies in any but the most cursory manner. Magidin 18:18, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The several paragraphs of info in the 2000 article related to electoral reforms are relevant to the controversies discussed in that page. If you think they do not belong on that page, then go to that page, remove the controversies, and start a page of controversies. Then leave the electoral reforms on the main page. You will not succeed in separating the controversies info from the electoral reforms proposed to deal with those controversies (some of them already passed) because people who have long worked on the 2000 page will see that it is illogical to separate via a POV fork the 2 issues. What you are doing could be considered as a POV fork. The 2004 controversy pages already have electoral reform info, and will have more as there are more electoral reforms proposed by electoral reform advocates, and the Democratic-controlled congress. As I said before, the 2004 controversies and reforms are now discussed much more widely. So that info will be entering more and more into the 2004 wikipedia articles. The proposed electoral reforms that relate directly to the 2004 election are being formulated more and more because the scope of the irregularities has only been recently seen in larger media. Since June 2006 and the Robert Kennedy compilation article. The info was out there before, but was scattered widely and in smaller media. And the full scope was not seen. It is an evolving wikipedia page just like this 2006 wikipedia page. --Timeshifter 13:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I would appreciate it greatly if you would stop ascribing me positions I do not hold. I apologized before, and if you still think there was something else I said to you that was unwarranted, I happily apologize for that as well. As you yourself quoted, you should assume good faith. I am getting the distinct impression that you have decided I am not acting in good faith; if that is not the case, then please be aware that it is the impression I am getting. Nowhere did I insinuate that the paragraphs that currently appear in the 2000 page do not belong there. In fact, I said they belong there, as that is the main page on the election, just I believe similar pargraphs would belong in the main page on this election. I am not advocating the creation of new pages either for the 2000 or 2004 U.S. election, nor for the 2006 mexican election, so your reference to POV fork is inapplicable. What I am saying is that, given that a page for the controversies on the 2006 election exists separate from its main discussion, then being a subcoordinated page it is meant to focus on controversies, and not on any and all tangential matters relating thereto. As the Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles states, Stay on topic. Magidin 15:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

For the 2006 page you are advocating separating the electoral reform info from the alleged irregularities. I am talking about electoral reform proposed to better avoid the alleged irregularities, or to make the irregularities (whether they happened or not) less relevant. As in proposals for runoff elections. See this quote from the Nov. 24, 2006 Herald Mexico article [18]:

"The EU mission, headed by Spanish Deputy José Ignacio Salafranca, said on Thursday that a runoff election would help the nation´s electoral system, especially following results as close as this year´s, when Felipe Calderón beat Andrés Manuel López Obrador by less than a percentage point. In a news conference, Salafranca said that while a second round would be expensive, it would give 'greater democratic legitimacy' to the result."

He is talking about future elections, of course, as the "call for electoral reforms" section of the 2006 wikipedia article indicates. --Timeshifter 18:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I did originally said that I believed the discussion of second rounds did not belong in this page. Then I modified and clarified this to say that it was an extensive discussion of the proposals that would be out of place, while also saying that proposals that directly refered to the irregularitiese would belong. When I rewrote the info to cite the original source, I included the call for a second round run-off explicitly. Why do we need another full paragraph that only repeats that information, which is tangential? Magidin 19:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The added info clarifies things greatly. Just like your addition to the section clarified things greatly. I started that section titled "Calls for election reform." You initially opposed having that section at all. Wikipedia people rarely get the big picture right when starting a new section. That is why wikipedia is so wonderful. We all contribute more info in order to paint all sides of various issues. That way we end up with a more NPOV page. In spite of our various conscious and unconscious biases. I don't believe I ever called for a broad discussion of all unrelated electoral reform issues on this page. I also called for inclusion only of related electoral reform issues. So we agree on that. --Timeshifter 19:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I do not see what was unclear before, nor what got clarified after, greatly or minimally. But it is plain that you will not agree to remove the re-iteration. Magidin 19:45, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Here is the revision so others can see what we are talking about. The addition of the article quote makes it clear that the EU observer mission proposal for a presidential runoff election is due to the closeness of the past election, and that a runoff in future elections would give 'greater democratic legitimacy' to the result. --Timeshifter 19:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)