Talk:Controversies of the 2006 Mexican general election/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Removed 4 duplicative photos

I removed the thumbnails of the 4 photos linked below from the wikipedia page. They are for the "Third Informative Assembly." They are unnecessary since very similar thumbnail photos are already on the page for that particular rally, and because there are links on the wikipedia page to photo galleries with many more rally photos.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Img_2053.jpg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Img_1902_GI.jpg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Img_1940_GI.jpg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Img_1916_GI.jpg --Timeshifter 21:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Letter by Woldenberg

I added text from a letter by José Woldenberg to La Jornada. The text is extensive, and I do not expect it will all survive (nor do I think it needs to or should). For now, however, I put a lot of it in since it is one of few explicit responses to several of the alleged irregularities on the page. As more quotes, newspaper reports, and notes are added, it probably will get shortened and/or replaced in parts. When it is all reorganized, it can be broken up and cited in situ relating to the specific issues. Magidin 16:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Sergio Sarmiento quote

I (temporarily?) removed the following paragraph from the section titled "Old fashioned fraud":

Sergio Sarmiento, writing the next day in his daily op-ed column in Reforma, wondered: "Perhaps it does not worry the main figures from [López Obrador's] campaign team, Leonel Cota, Gerardo Fernández Noroña, Ricardo Monreal, Manuel Camacho and Claudia Sheinbaum, that they have already explained the electronic fraud in diverse forums a thousand and one times."

I wonder whether we should include these type of non-substantial points. Maybe we could include a sampling of the insults and counter-insults between all the parties. I don't know. They are not part of the controversies. They are part of the circus surrounding the controversies. And maybe for that reason we should include some of that stuff. To paint a picture of the atmosphere surrounding the controversies.

I have been studying the statistical analyzes of the PREP results written by several professors. It is not an easy topic. And there are a number of issues involved. Different issues from the Official Count issues. For the PREP it is not just an issue of when the reports came in from the North, Mexico City, etc..

Do we really want to waste a lot of wikipedia space analyzing that stuff when even Lopez Obrador does not want to contest that issue? I left links to every substantial analysis I could find so far. Those interested can follow that info. --Timeshifter 18:50, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we should waste a lot of wikipedia space quoting almost every allegation or substantial analysis in the first place, but I seem not be in the consensus there. The reason I added the Sarmiento quote is because it makes a point that I think is important and substantial. Namely, that the allegation of cyberfraud was not just an early allegation made a few times that was then picked up and carried by others. The López Obrador campaign spent two weeks on every chat show and news conference they could find talking about the "evidence for the cyber-fraud", how the cyber-fraud has been done, and so on (note, they did not claim they thought there had been a cyberfraud, like López Obrador said; they talked about it as a proven fact). We have a lot of links and cites to people arguing about statistical anomalies and differences between PREP and actas. Al Giordano makes a big deal out of the differences between the PREP and the actas, and claiming it is definitive evidence for fraud in his oft-quoted pieces. Yet, after two weeks of that, suddenly it was "Never mind. It wasn't that after all." López Obrador may not want to contest the issue now, but he made big deal about it then. And talk of the alleged cyberfraud continued. Víctor Romero was still giving interviews in October saying that the only likely explanation he had for what he saw was that the results were "manipulated" by the computers. The following link is to an interview in Spanish, but here it is: [1]. I know you've removed the links and mentions to Romero (and I agree with their removal); the point is that the allegation did not die out with López Obrador's dismissal, just as it had not been merely put forth as a hypothesis before.

Imagine if the fable of the boy who cried wolf merely said "The boy had, in the past, claimed a wolf was approaching when no wolf actually was. The townsfold did not attend to his current claim." That would not accurately represent what happened. The fact that the arguments and claims of the fraud were continually shifting is relevant, and was a factor in public opinion. If we are going to just put all the information there and let the readers decide, then the information and the context for that information needs to be there. I certainly did not want to write it as an editorial statement (i.e., as a comment by the omniscient editor), but there should be a point made that it wasn't just a single allegation. The quote was clearly labeled as opinion, and Sergio Sarmiento is well-known and respected political commentator; while he is generally a free-marketer, he also had many columns praising many of the proposals of López Obrador and defending him against the charge that he was a "danger to Mexico." I am not sure why you qualify the quote as an "insult". López Obrador said in the interview he was not going to worry any more about the cyberfraud. Hence the comment.

In any case: I think the point should be there somewhere, as should the point that the claims of "cyberfraud" did not die when López Obrador said it did not happen after all.Magidin 20:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I have not found explanations for the PREP anomalies anywhere. I suggest you read the analyzes by the 2 physics professors. Good luck. It is tedious reading. :) --Timeshifter 23:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

You're talking to a mathematician.(-:

But I'm not sure which you mean by "anomalies". Differences between the actas and what they show? I think not, based on your comments below, but anyway: Woldenberg mentions that the IFE did not clarify the difference between "tally sheets computed" and "tally sheets received". I need to look up the eventual explanation (and I was planning to) but as I recall, it's the difference between putting up information based on the actual receipt of the tally sheet (which involved a couple of fail-safes to prevent capture errors), and putting up information based on reports (and I don't recall how the information was obtained then) rather than the sheet itself. In any case: the point is that any anomalies in the PREP would be utterly pointless. The PREP is not used for anything other than to let people know on Sunday what the returns look like, more or less. The Official Count is not used to validate the PREP, it is not based on the PREP, and has nothing to do with the PREP.

If you are referring to the alleged statistical inequalities, much of the analysis begin from flawed assumptions (that there should be randomness in the input, the most common one I've seen in the 10 or so "analysis" I have read cover to cover). But if you want to save space: we have a paragraph on the analysis of Jorge López. The subsequent discussion pretty much demolishes both his assumptions and his conclusions (he makes a big deal of correlation over time, apparently ignoring the fact that the results are cumulative, so they must show correlation over time; anything else would be suspect; and he makes a big deal of the late surge for Calderón, same as pretty much every one else. I'll be trying to find contemporary reports, but the board discussion also mentions it: the PRD's representatives in the northern states were under instructions to object to every packet and slow down the count. They wanted the difference to be made up overnight, so that people would go to bed with López Obrador ahead and wake up with Calderón ahead; ghosts of the 1988 'computer crash' were explicitly mentioned, ironically by the man behind that crash who now works for López Obrador, and by 9pm they were already talking about how the PAN was "planning a madruguete" (dead-of-night raid) ). Rather than link to a discredited analysis and to the discussion that discredits it, just remove it entirely. Magidin 13:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

The official count graph is easily explained by the order in which the district results came in. --Timeshifter 23:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I have seen much confusion among many people discussing the the above 2 different issues. Because they mix them up. I am sure the same problem exists in what you have read too. --Timeshifter 23:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

The difference between the PREP results and the actas is different from the above 2 issues. The tallies on the PREP precinct results (shown precinct by precinct on the IFE site during the PREP count) were sometimes different from the numbers on the tally sheets (actas). It wasn't just Al Giordano who noted that. He also referred to other sources. --Timeshifter 23:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

But that is not "cyberfraud", and it is pointless anyway. Al Giordano concluded fraud based on those differences, and explicitly says that there is computer manipulation going on. Did he also publish López Obrador's statement two weeks later that there was no computer fraud after all? I don't know. I was hoping to look it up. Allegations of computer fraud were picked up by the independent media en masse, repeated often (and are still repeated). That is why I think space needs to be devoted to this, even if López Obrador eventually decided to withdraw the claim. It's still out there. Magidin 13:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

We could find quotes from all sides saying that their side had explained a particular issue in many forums. But I am not sure that would do much good in an encyclopedia article. I prefer some actual explanations. Or I prefer some analysis such as the Luis Mochan info below where he doesn't act like he has an explanation yet. --Timeshifter 00:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

What I see is that we have many extensive, explicit quotes of people claiming problems and making allegations. Some seem at least somewhat misleading and personal; I don't recall Aznar being "flown in" by the PAN, but I could be wrong. I'll be looking that up, to mention one. In any case, those quotes are apparently fine. But rebuttal quotes should be summarized editorially? I'm happy to have all claims summarized editorially, drop most if not all of the extensive, paragraph-long quotes that have been added to the allegations sections, and keep only small sentences or clauses as quotations, for both allegations and rebuttals. But if the sauce is good for the goose, it has to be good for the gander as well. You said we should add the information and rebuttals. I'm trying to do so. As for the Sarmiento quote, fine. I'll just summarize editorially that the allegation was made many times by the main people in the López Obrador campaign (perhaps we should note who some of those people are. Are you aware that his head of campaign is widely considered to be the man behind the alleged fraud in the 1988 elections?) before putting López Obrador's statements, and that they did not retract them later. If I find news outlets still running the story of "cybernetic fraud" after that date and citing statements prior to July 17, I'll add referenced notes to that after. Magidin 13:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I just found this info from another article and will be putting it in the PREP section: "Mochan notes that these statistical anomalies aren't definitive proof of anything."

He is a physics professor who wrote one of the statistical analyzes of the PREP. --Timeshifter 19:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

José Woldenberg article

Here is that section:

In a letter published in La Jornada on August 31 2006, José Woldenberg wrote (internal paragraph numbering and breaks omitted) :

"When we talk about fraud we understand an operation orchestrated to alter the will of the citizens that was expressed in the polls, some mechanism to artificially 'inflate' the votes for one candidate and subtract the votes of the other. I understand that we all recognize errors or inconsistencies in the filling of the actas on the day of the election. The difference lies in that some think or thought they were systematic irregularities in favor and against some candidates (that is, fraud), and [I and] others affirmed they were the result of errors that are natural in a labor done by citizens that were randomly chosen and trained for that day and that work.

"Today we know -still only partially- the results of the recount of almost 12 thousand polling places that was done by the electoral tribunal. And what we can state is that from this new recount no evidence of fraud or ill intention appears in the final tally of the votes. As can be expected, the errors are distributed in a more or less even manner among all parties and coalitions. [...]

"(It is worth remembering that the tribunal is not an entity foreign to the agreements that were agreed to by all political parties. They - the parties - decided that it would be a tribunal that would be in charge of processing the electoral disputes, and it would have the final and definitive word. It is not a perverse invention, but rather it was designed and approved by all political parties, and the naming of the magistrates was likewise approved by all of them and throughout 10 years all of its resolutions have been followed.) [...]

"First it was 3 million lost votes. But it turned out that the votes were in a special file of the PREP, that of the "inconsistent actas" that had been designed by common agreement between the IFE and the political parties. That, nonetheless, does not deny that in the presentation of the PREP on the Internet there was an error committed by the IFE: not distinguishing between actas received and actas computed. Then, it was an 'algorithm' that modified the results of the PREP. In the end the fantasy caved in among other things because the PREP is only a mechanism to put within reach of the citizens and the political parties information about the preliminary results, but it is not the official mechanism to tally the votes. Besides, since the political parties have in their possession a very high number of actas, they can check if their results coincide or not with those of the PREP (which are displayed polling place by polling place). Later the suspicion was expanded by noting the tallies-over-time of the PREP and of the district councils did not follow the same tendencies. The explanation of this alleged 'anomaly' turned out to be both easy and forceful: the fundamental variable that explains the collection of information in the PREP is the distance between the polling place and the district council (plus how slowly or quickly the polling place itself tallies the votes), while in the district councils the count advances as a function of the speed with which the actas are confronted by the councils themselves, the discussion that takes place in them, and whether or not the electoral packets are opened. Then a video appeared of a Polling place President putting votes in a ballot box as evidence of the "pregnant ballot boxes". It turned out, however, that the operation was being performed with the agreement of the representatives of the political parties, since the votes had been deposited by mistake in the wrong ballot box. I will not go on so as not to bore the reader. But the last proof was the inconsistencies in the filling of the actas. And what do we have? That those errors, after a recount of little less than 12 thousand polling places impugned by the coalition For the Good of All, does not follow the pattern of benefiting one and damaging the other.

Naturally, we also can and must discuss the conditions in which the electoral battle took place. But, for now, that's [a separate topic.]"

---

It does not make a lot of sense to wikipedia readers when it is all by itself in one section of the wikipedia page. I suggest putting parts of it in different places in the wikipedia article. We can use the same reference link. --Timeshifter 19:11, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

In my edit comment, I explicitly said that this would be the expected case, as I did in my Talk comment relating to it. I added the full information now, as I explained in the edit comment, because it is one of the few explicit rebuttals to a lot of the claims that were listed. I am more than happy to summarize and edit both statements of claims and statements of their respective rebuttals and leave the complete text as references for the interested reader to look up if they wish. Once the information is reorganized, the rebuttals should of course follow the claims. Magidin 19:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I did not realize you had completely excised the quote. Until it is edited in and distributed, should not the information be there? Magidin 20:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Víctor Romero info

I removed this info from the article:

Sophie McNeill writes: "Víctor Romero is a Doctor of physics who specialises in statistics and randomness at the National University of Mexico. Dr. Romero studied data from the election and believes there is strong evidence of fraud." In an interview with Sophie McNeill he declares:

"The PRD was winning and then suddenly at about 70% they start losing and never even gained .01 of a percentage," he explained. It seems incredible that as the last 30% of results came in, the PRD share of votes never increased. "It could be like this and then like that," Dr Romero explains, moving his hands up and down, "More of one party and less than another. But not in order. The order here is completely unexplainable. [...] There is a possibility statistically speaking, very strong, that there was an interference with the computer system of the IFE that made the counting of the votes."

---

I didn't put the above info in the wikipedia article. Someone else did. I am confused about whether Victor Romero is talking about the PREP or the official count. I am going to look around and try to find more definitive info on what he said or wrote about the issues. Others can look around too. We can link to what we find. And we can put some clearer info in the article. --Timeshifter 19:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

The reason I said that he must be talking about the official count is his statement: "The PRD was winning and then suddenly at about 70% they start losing". This has to refer to the official count, since in the PREP it was the PAN who was ahead until late in the game. See the table organized by time and percentage of returns counted in Mexican general election, 2006#Official count.

I agree, however, that he does not make it clear. I had added the information noting that there is no computer transmission or collation of votes in the official count, that was in the PREP. I fully agree with the information being removed. Magidin 20:05, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Missing Votes

There are two references to missing votes in the article. First, a bit of background: Starting on Sunday July 2 at night and continuing through Tuesday July 4, there were a lot of claims that there were between 1.5 and 2.5 million votes missing from the PREP. By July 4, Ugalde had confirmed that there were about 2.5 million votes that had been placed in the "irregular tally sheets" file, which was directly accessible from the PREP pages but whose totals had not been added to the on-line running real-time totals. The following article is in Spanish, but addresses that: [2].

The article makes the following references in the section on Alleged Irregularities: it refers to López Obrador's claims of "1,621,187 votes added or missing." The reference is given to a chart in a blog called "electoralfraudmexico". The blog's reference to a Reuters story is a defunct link. The only other reference is to www.lopezobrador.com, and I cannot find any reference for the assertions there either. Are they comparing PREP with the tally sheets, or are they comparing the final count with the tally sheets, or what?

I have been following up on the things you discussed in this talk section. These Google searches find more info:

http://www.google.com/search?q=72197+polling+stations

http://www.google.com/search?q=72197+voting

http://www.google.com/search?q=72197+polling

http://www.google.com/search?q=72197+voting+stations

They pull up pages quoting that number of polling (or voting) stations. That number is in the article you mentioned:

http://electoralfraudmexico.blogspot.com/2006/08/1621187-votes-without-sustain.html

I still have a lot of reading to do. --Timeshifter 23:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I will follow up on the links you give; thanks. I also made some half-hearted attempts to follow up on the distinction Woldenberg brought up between "tally sheets computed" and "tally sheets received", but have not yet been able to track it down. Meanwhile, I suggest changing "votes added or missing" to "overvotes" and "undervotes," respectively. I realize the sources from which these claims come talk about adding and missing, but the terms are loaded. What we have is overvotes (more votes counted than the registry seems to allow for) and undervotes (fewer votes counted than the registry seems to call for). Whether they are truly "added votes" or "missing votes" is precisely the crux of the issue, and calling them that assumes the conclusions. Magidin 15:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I did discover what the distinction is. "Tally sheets received" refered to the number of polling places for which the tally sheet had been received by the IFE's office at the district council; some of those would be found to be inconsistent and added to the inconsistent tally sheet database, and not to the regular totals. "Tally sheets computed" refered to tally sheets received, and which were added to the general database. IFE only reported the latter, resulting in the claims that there were "votes missing" on the night of the election. Magidin 19:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

We have the reference to Luis Mochán as well. There are two links; the second one should be changed: it simply points to an index of recent papers by Mochán. It should probably point directly to the papers that the first link (Galbraith's) points to: presumably the better is the English translation [3], or the Spanish original [4]. In any case, the paper makes clear that he is talking about information in the PREP. What was not clear to me, however, is whether he is including the irregular tally sheets or not. It is also unclear how large the differences are per polling place. A handful of "votes missing" (meaning, the total of blank ballots left over plus the total of filled ballots deposited is less than the number of ballots originally given to the polling place) is common, resulting form people who sign in but do not cast their votes for whatever reason. One or two "overvotes" (that refer to more votes cast than names stamped in the polling place log) is also not uncommon, resulting from errors by the poll workers. Mochán agrees many of the problems are explainable as errors, though he believes the explanation is insufficient: "It is quite probable that many of the inconsistencies has its origin in simple humanerrors made without malice. It has been speculated in the Mexican press that most of them originate in the confusion of some citizens due to the closeness between basic and adjacent booths corresponding to the same section. As part of this work I verifed that this confusion could indeed produce some of the inconsistencies, but that it is not enough to explain their magnitude, which remains even after aggregating the data section-wise." In any case, once again we are talking about alleged problems with the PREP.

These two claims should be at least moved within the article. They both occur after the mention of the official complaint, which is about the results in the Official Count. Mochán's analysis and Galbraith's column which is based on that analysis refer to problems identified in the PREP, and as such they should be placed before the "master complaint" is mentioned. I would also suggest that Mochán's disclaimer, and disclaimer on the disclaimer (i.e., that many of the problems are likely honest errors, but that he believes there are too many for all of them to be explained that way) should be added, though probably editorially rather than through the extensive quote. The López Obrador claim from the paragraph immediately above it needs proper citations, and there is a need to clearly identify what role the "incosistent tally sheets" may or may not have played in the assertion (this will no doubt take some doing). Magidin 20:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a heads up and an explanation for my recent additions. In the past couple of days I spoke with someone who was present during presentations with Mochán, in which the latter gave talks on his analyses and conclusions. One of the people present was a statistician who was in the Quick Count Technical Committee. That was the source of the explanation for overvotes/undervotes coming from contiguous polling places (Mochán and others do not specify the polling places from which they obtain their total); that person also claimed that a similar analysis on the 2000 election data would produce similar results, and that Mochán was invited to do that analysis as well (but that, apparently, no one has done so). Finally, I am afraid that for personal reasons I will not have as much time to dedicate to this article during these weeks as I had originally hoped. Magidin 19:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Speaker's platform

My understanding is that an attempt was made on Tuesday 28 November to prevent the government's nominee from sitting in the speaker's chair in congress, which is a time-honoured way of preventing the house from officially sitting. The article doesn't specify this. Have I got this right? And can someone supply a good English language link describing what happened? Thanks.--Shtove 20:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

If by time-honoured you mean that somehow it is allowed in the constitution, then it's not.

The Mexican voting system is designed in a top-bottom way; in each step there is the chance to re-check and fix errors, there is time to point errors, and once the time is over it is highly desirable not ti go back. For example, in each polling station there can be observers of all parties, and all the registered observers must sign their conformance to the result, and by doing that there is no going back to re-count the votes. Later they (or anyone) can check the system (which is available online) the results of all the polling stations, if there are errors, they must report them, and the polling boxes are re-checked, but the individual votes are not re-counted (because everyone signed they were OK, and only the citizens are allowed to do that). However, the system allows the tribunal to order a full-recount, or other extreme measures, _only_ if there are exceptional and clear conditions of irregularities... that was not the case.

What happened in the congress is to quote Timeshifter, a circuss, as well as the event in which López Obrador took position as "legitimate" president-elect (with his followers) López Obrador has a history of such laughable events, and he makes it obvious he doesn't have any respect for the law or the institutions.

It is a shame that there is so many good information about this issue but a lot of it is in spanish, in papers that need subscription, radio and TV. IMO there should be more information available for people outside Mexico, at least better than Narco News. -- Felipec 08:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Time honoured: elected representatives have done this kind of thing for hundreds of years in parliaments all over the place - not just Mexico. The earliest example I know of is 1613 in Dublin. Anyway, no link yet.--Shtove 16:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Alliance vs. Coalition

As far as I can tell, the grouping began with the name of "Alliance for the Good of All", but later registered itself officially as "Coalition for the Good of All"; Google gives no hits for a search for "Alianza por el Bien de Todos" in AMLO's site, www.amlo.org.mx, and gives 26 hits for "Coalicion por el Bien de Todos". I realize that the wikipedia page uses "Alliance", and I'll go and change it. I suspect they wanted a name that was clearly different from the PRI and PVEM's "Alianza por Mexico". In any case, the entire page should be searched and fixed. I'll put in a comment in the main page as well. Magidin 20:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. Only two ocurrences, as far as I could tell... Magidin 20:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

User copy

I have created a User copy of this page to try to whip it into shape as far as organization and the like. I will try to write up a new introduction over the next few days to start with. Since I believe I may end up producing a lot of changes, I decided to go this way rather than stick my hand into the article itself.

I will post here in the talk page hen I have new sections done, to request comments. For now, the page should be a copy of what was on the main page at 21:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC) Magidin 21:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Titles for articles in Spanish in the references

We should have a consistent style; I had been putting just an English translation of the headlines of all articles in Spanish I have linked up as a reference. It had seemed to me that this was the case for the references until then. One I put up yesterday was modified to give the title in Spanish with a translation in parenthesis; and I see at least one link to an article in Spanish in the references that has only the Spanish title.

I would suggest putting just an English translation of the title; perhaps with a note "(in Spanish)" after it. Otherwise, put the title in Spanish and always include an English translation in parenthesis. In any case, we should keep it consistent. I would prefer the former (those who speak Spanish can read the original, those who cannot will see the translated headline). Magidin 15:05, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Articles sometimes disappear. But with a Google search they can often be found elsewhere in archives and other locations. But to do so one needs the original title. That is why I included the original title in Spanish. I do not think the English title is that important. I didn't want to delete your translation of the title so I put it in parentheses. I suggest deleting it to keep the same style, and to keep the kilobytes down. If all the titles were translated into English, and we kept both titles, it would significantly increase the kilobytes for this page. --Timeshifter 21:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The articles are being given with bibliographic information (name of the publication, date of publication); that is precisely to avoid problems of "disappearing articles". In any case, for the same reason that you advocate using English translations of names like "Alianza Civica" and "Conteo Rapido", we should probably include the English translation of the title; it's what I've done over the last week, but I believe this is the first time you've put in the original title. But in any case, it should be a consistent style, and that it the one thing we don't have now. Some articles have only the translated English title; some have only the untranslated Spanish, and some have the original Spanish and a translation. Magidin 22:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I have had to replace reference URLs for disappearing articles in various wikipedia pages. It can be very difficult to find a replacement URL without the original title of the article. I am talking about URLs from different websites. Websites that have archived the article for various reasons. Sometimes the original site does not have the article archived anywhere on its site anymore. Or they require subscription. Wikipedia guidelines prefer links to non-subscriber locations of an article. People really don't need the English translation of the title of the article. If they can't read Spanish they still can't read the article itself. So the title in English does not help them. And Spanish speakers don't need the article title translated into English. Translating organization and other words in the wikipedia article itself is helpful because some English articles use the Spanish words now and then, and the non-Spanish-speaking readers need the translation. --Timeshifter 01:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I currently count 5 articles with only the English translation of the title in the references. You or I can add the Spanish titles too. I am not disturbed by the inconsistency. Or we can delete the English titles. But we really must keep the Spanish titles for the reasons I have given in order to maintain longterm verifiability standards. Otherwise others may delete some of the info in the wikipedia article if it is no longer referenced and verifiable. --Timeshifter 01:59, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Relevance

The Civic Alliance claimed that in Lopez Obrador strongholds he received 312,450 less votes than his allied senatorial candidate. In Calderon strongholds there were 403,740 more votes for President than for Senator.

I recently erased this from the article, but Timeshifter re-added it. I understand it is sourced material, but, if I add sourced material about, say, dinosaurs, or the goverment of Argentina, should it remain in this article simply because it is sourced? Shouldn't the information also be relevant? How is a statistic about voting splits relevant to the article?

Voting splits is when a person votes for one political party for President, and another political party for another post. I splitted my vote, and the phenomenon is not at all uncommon in Mexico. It has happened in all federal elections since 1997. This information, though probably correct and sourced, weasels the idea that a natural phenomenon "voting split" implies an unnatural phenomenon (there are votes missing). Because it is pov, a weasel comment, and it is irrelevant to the overall context (i.e., there is no CLEAR explanation of how the voting split has anything to do with the controversy), I find it natural for it to be eliminated from this article.

Hari Seldon 00:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The Civic Alliance is an election observer group. Vote splitting that favors one candidate is a common allegation of voting irregularities worldwide. Please do not erase relevant sourced info. If you find other relevant sourced info concerning this vote splitting, then please feel free to add it. Wikipedia does not interpret the sourced info. It puts out all significant relevant sourced info, and lets the readers come to their own conclusions. I did not delete the sourced info you added recently. --Timeshifter 00:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, then, if "vote splitting that favors one candidate is a common allegation of voting irregularities worldwide", add a source to explain it (i.e., explain what is vote splitting, explain that it is a natural phenomenon, add context on vote splitting in Mexican elections historically, etc...). Meanwhile, the sentence has no logical connection to the article and should be eliminated. That is, either the sentence is kept by adding context that makes it relevant to the article, or the sentence is erased. And no, it won't be me who adds the context, because I don't see how vote splitting and electoral fraud are related at all. Hari Seldon 00:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia can not explain everything to every reader. The point is whether it is relevant sourced info to the article. It is to many readers. Maybe later you or I can add more info on it. There is lots of info of yours that needs further info. I added "citation needed" tags to that unsourced info. Unsourced info can be deleted by anybody. But many editors leave it in if it is relevant, and they wait awhile to allow the editor who added it to find the sources for it, and to add the reference links. --Timeshifter 00:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I contest that this information is relevant "to many readers". Have other readers expressed that this is useful? Does this conform to the good article guidelines? And, above all, is it logical that this statement is the lead to the entire subsection? My concern is that this almost seems as if all allegations of fraud where based on the phenomenon of vote-splitting, a phenomenon that is not controversial in itself! The info I've added, as you can see, I've added the appropriate citations in some cases, and in others, I am finding them. The Hugo Chavez vs. Aznar clarifications should need no citations, but if you insist, that can be easily found too. Hari Seldon 02:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Two points: note that "vote splitting" has a technical meaning, which is not the one being used here. See the corresponding section in Spoiler effect.

Second, here is some related data that I think would be relevant to put some of these numbers in context, but I am having a hard time figuring out how to do so, hence my putting them in the talk page. Consider the elections for President, Senator, and Governor of Guanajuato, a PAN stronghold. From [5] we see that the totals for president for the three major candidates were 1,155,403 votes for Calderón, 368,789 for Madrazo, and 301,463 for López Obrador. The results for Senator, [6] give the PAN 1,104,120 votes, the Coalición (Obrador's associated senator) 249,935, and the Alianza por México (PRI and PVEM) 424,165. We see that both Calderón and López Obrador got more votes than their associated senatorial candidate, and of about the same order of magnitude: Calderón 51,283 votes more, and López Obrador 51,498 more votes. However, relatively speaking, López Obrador had about a 17% increase over the senatorial candidate, while Calderón had only a 4.44% increase (the difference as a percentage of the presidential totals). Madrazo got about the same votes fewer than his associated senatorial candidate, 55,376 fewer votes, a 15% decrease. Now move on to the governor's race. See [7] The PAN candidate, who was in alliance with Nueva Alianza, got 1,166,820 votes, or 11,417 more than Calderón. The Coalición's gubernatorial candidate received 204,143 votes, meaning that López Obrador received 97,320 more votes than his associated gubernatorial candidate. The PRI-PVEM received 494,446 votes for governor, or 125,657 more votes than the corresponding presidential candidate. Since the PAN ran by itself for president but joint with Alianza for governor, perhaps we should add their totals: adding the votes for Calderón and with the 18,611 votes received by Nueva Alianza for president still means they both together received 46,089 fewer votes for president than their common gubernatorial candidate (Nueva Alianza received 66,551 votes for senator, or 47,940 votes more for senator than for president). Or going the other way, the PAN's candidate received 1,135,514 votes under the PAN's emblem, or 19,889 fewer than Calderón. In the four states that held gubernatorial elections, López Obrador exceeded the totals for his allied gubernatorial candidate, even when the latter won: in Mexico City, definite a López Obrador stronghold López Obrador got 2,813,112 votes to Ebrard's 2,206,551 (Calderón also exceeded with 1,325,474 votes the 1,291,805 votes received by his allied candidate, Sodi); the Coalición's senatorial candidate received 2,493,288, or 319,824 fewer votes than López Obrador. In Jalisco, another PAN stronghold, Calderón received 1,435,334, which amounted to 138,589 more votes than the gubernatorial candidate, and 11,190 more than the senatorial candidate; López Obrador received 559,266 votes, more than double the 224,590 votes the gubernatorial candidate received and 222,052 votes more than the allied senatorial candidate (with 337,214 votes). In Morelos, which López Obrador won with 312,815 votes to Calderón's 226,340, the PAN's gubernatorial candidate received 246,136 votes (19,796 more votes than Calderón), and the Coalición's gubernatorial candidate received 218,931, or 93,884 fewer votes than López Obrador. In the senate race in Morelos, the PAN candidate received 216,423 votes, 9,917 fewer votes than Calderón, but López Obrador's allied candidate received 211,871 vote, 100,944 fewer votes than López Obrador. The implication is that the difference is attributable to either changed votes or stuffed ballot boxes, but as far as I can tell they are picking and choosing where they are comparing. Here we see two of the major PAN strongholds with both Calderón and López Obrador well ahead of their senatorial counterpart, and the same in two PRD locations; and López Obrador did substantially better than gubernatorial candidates of his party in all four elections, while Calderón did only marginally better in two, and worse in two. Magidin 19:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this original research, Magidin? Hari Seldon 20:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Missed this the first time around... I believe such collation of data would not constitute original research within the meaning of Wikipedia. In WP:OR, it is stated that:

research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly encouraged. All articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from published primary and secondary sources. This is not "original research"; it is "source-based research", and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia.

while WP:ATT states:

What is not original research? Editors may make straightforward mathematical calculations or logical deductions based on fully attributed data that neither change the significance of the data nor require additional assumptions beyond what is in the source. It should be possible for any reader without specialist knowledge to understand the deductions. For example, if a published source gives the numbers of votes cast in an election by candidate, it is not original research to include percentages alongside the numbers, so long as it is a simple calculation and the vote counts all come from the same source. Deductions of this nature should not be made if they serve to advance a position, or if they are based on source material published about a topic other than the one at hand.

Magidin 16:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Any way, whats your point? Hari Seldon 20:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

My point is actually in support of you: I do not know where it is alleged that López Obrador received fewer votes than his allied senatorial candidate; the places I have looked at, he always got more. And places where I see Calderón receiving more votes than his allied senatorial candidate, López Obrador also received more. Alianza Civica is using innuendo to suggest there are indications of fraud because in some places López Obrador received fewer votes than the senatorial candidate, whereas in other places Calderón received more than the senatorial candidate. Even ignoring the problem of logical connection that you put forth, should we not compare any difference between Calderón and his senatorial "mate" with those of López Obrador in that location? See above: while there are places where Calderón did indeed get more votes than the senatorial candidate, the same thing happened with López Obrador in that state. If you have the innuendo that there is something fishy because Calderón got more votes, well, that is completely moot given that López Obrador not only also got more votes, he got even more votes. If, as is insinuated, the "extra" votes were a result of fraud, then what about the "extra" votes for López Obrador, and what did they accomplish? Likewise, let us see in those places where Obrador allegedly received fewer votes than his senatorial partizan; did Calderón also get fewer votes than the PAN candidate? The allegations are not only nebulous, they seem to me to be misleading. And see the new text. Now we are talking about "more votes for president than senator", but this completely glosses over for whom those votes were cast. In the case of Guanajuato, a PAN stronghold, the 100,000 "more votes for president" were split almost evenly between PAN and the Coalition, with the Coalition slightly ahead. How is this supposed to be indicative of pro-PAN fraud, exactly? Note also that Madrazo ran several percentage points behind his party's congressional candidates throughout; how does the distribution relate to the relative strength of the PRI? Many PRIistas were disgusted with their presidential candidate but voted for the congressional candidates anyway. How much of the difference between votes for president and for senator can be laid at the PRI's feet? Magidin 21:56, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I know, Magidin, that the intention was to support the point of view that the information currently displayed in the sentence is flawed. However, NPOV would mandate that both information (the one currently in, and the other one that you've just presented) be included in the article. After all, they are both points of views.

In any case, my criticism is that, regardless of point of view, the information is irrelevant to the article. Whether or not more people voted for legislators than for President, or whether or not they voted for one political party for the legislature and another one for the President is completely irrelvant to the controversies. Either phenomenon is not controversial in of itself.

I agree; I was merely pointing out that even if we were to accept the intended innuendo, it makes no sense. Magidin 20:02, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

And since the phenomenon is not controversial in of itself, then it should not be in this article. Unless someone is advancing the hypothesis that this phenomenon indicates some form of fraud (i.e., assuming that people always voted for the same party in legislature AND president, and all people who voted for legislature also voted for President, then Lopez Obrador should have gotten more votes). This hypothesis, however, IS NOT present in the article. Why? Because an individual editor cannot advance such hypothesis in this encyclopedia (it would be considered Original Research), and perhaps it is difficult to find a source claiming this ludicrous hypothesis.

Since the hypothesis is not presented in the article, then the presentation of the phenomenon in itself is not controversial, and therefore has nothing to do with this article. It should not be here.

Again, I agree. I do want to point out a further point of weaseling, though: the original claim stated that López Obrador was running behind his allied senatorial candidate in PRD strongholds, while Calderón was running ahead of the PAN candidate in PAN strongholds. Hence your comments about splitting your vote among different parties. But now the claim has been changed substantially. Now the statement is that if you look at all "PAN strongholds" (whatever that is supposed to be), then you will find more votes for president than for senator (adding up all votes for all parties), whereas in "PRD strongholds" (again, whatever that is supposed to be) you find the opposite. Further, the refered article claims that having more votes for president than for senator is somehow indicative of fraud, since they claim it is extremely difficult for someone to vote for president but not senator. That is patent nonsense, as I am sure you know: a lot of people in Mexico vote only for president, and in addition some of the small parties that fielded a presidential candidate did not field a senatorial one. In short: I agree it is not controversial, and I further add that if you were to accept the innuendo as assertion of opinion, that opinion is baseless and is not well sourced. Just quoting someone who asserts something nebulous is not adequate sourcing, no matter who that person is. Magidin 20:02, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

And even then, a voter can choose to vote for his legislative representative and chose not to vote for President, and vice-versa. This does not necessarily imply any wrong-doing. The article, however, does state that someone actually suggested that an otherwise perfectly normal phenomenon "suggested" wrong-doing. In the interest of NPOV, I would like to, at least, ask that the legal actions taken by the PRD on this issue are included. If the PRD did not take any legal action, or took insufficient legal action (like, they sued but presented no proof), then that should also be stated.

I mean, I want to assume good faith, but the current order, wording, and structuring of the article seems like a suggestion that the PRD was attacked with innumerable cases of fraud and that the law decided to not do anything about it. However, this is far from the truth. The PRD created a great mediatic experience around accusations of fraud, but failed to file any legal complaint, and thus the courts had no choice but to validate the election. Legally, the PRD was ok with the election (so much ok that they decided not to sue), and legally the election is valid. This quite important point seems to be left out. Hari Seldon 23:37, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

And again, the defense that it should be in the article because it is sourced is no excuse. I mean, I can find plenty of useful sources about UANL Tigres that have nothing to do with this article... does that mean that this article should also feature sourced information about UANL Tigres?

Hari Seldon 02:29, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Warnings on editor's talk pages

RE: I did not violate the three revert rule. Additionally, I am not reverting your edits, rather I made an edit that you are reverting without properly addressing the concerns I present in the talk page. True, wikipedia cannot explain everything to every reader, however I am not asking about the origin of the atom here, I am asking for a logical link between the contested information and the article's presentation. At the very least, it should be properly explain why it is the lead to the whole section. Is it that this controversial piece is the main reason why the election was contested? Obviously not! Irresponsbility and inability to discuss logically/negotiate do not assume good faith, and that too is against wikipedia policy. Lets not make this content dispute transform into a personal dispute. I have nothing against you, and I do feel that this warning is rather premature. Hari Seldon 02:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, Timeshifter, you added a warning to my talk page without me actually committing a 3RR violation. Yet, you reverted my edits the same number of times! Perhaps you should add a warning to your own talk page too.

But, I will assume that this is just a misunderstanding, and that there is a willingness to talk this through. I am contesting a piece of the article, and I suggest that we resolve this without warnings and edit warring. Please provide the appropriate context. I am working on the citations.

As you notice, my intention is to make this article more NPOV.Hari Seldon 02:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

And the sources have been added. Now, please address the issues I raise about the controversial sentence. Hari Seldon 02:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I find nothing curious about the voting results. In fact, I find them irrelevant. I've presented my case, and still no response. I think I'll be bold. Hari Seldon 21:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)