Michael Perelman wrote:
Is it possible that the partial recount can change the outcome?
Very unlikely. It is not clear to me -- on the basis of the press reports -- what criterion the tribunal used to pick out that 9% of the polling places. I can see in what states those polling places are and I can tell those are states where the PAN had too strong a showing to be believable, but I don't know whether the actual polling places the tribunal decided to recount are ones that can make a difference. There's a comment in my blog that deems it a "conspiracy theory" -- so beware if you are against "conspiracy theories" as a matter of principle -- but I mention that López Obrador revealed the existence of two e-mails between two top PAN bureaucrats... Hm, no, actually, to be more precise, Juan Molinar, the PAN's representative in the IFE, forwarded an e-mail he received from César Nava, the general adjunct secretary of the PAN, one of the members of the PAN's national council, to his number guy Carlo Varela, to run the data for him. This was the task assigned to Varela: First, verify whether López Obrador's numbers re. the irregular polling places are correct -- or, rather, consistent with "our numbers" (the PAN's or the IFE's). And second, find the largest possible sample, out of those irregular polling places spotted by López Obrador, such that, if a recount is made on them, we still win. Anyway you read this e-mail, there's an underlying admission that they actually lost the election! But anyway, the answer to the first question was "yes, López Obrador's numbers (questioning over 60% of all polling places) look right." And the result of the second exercise appears to have been something like 10%, properly picked out irregular polling places! Now, López Obrador has not disclosed additional information where that particular figure (10%) is mentioned. He just claimed it in yesterday's meeting. Obviously, I tend to believe that he has the elements to say it. In the meeting, he said the tribunal's ruling seemed too much like inspired by the PAN's statistical exercise. And then he pulled the e-mails. The PAN guys have not denied those are their e-mails. In fact, implicitly, they admitted they are theirs -- they said the government should prosecute López Obrador for reading their private correspondence, but for some strange reason, they are not suing him formally. More details in the blog (scroll down to read the comments): http://machete2006.wordpress.com/2006/08/05/the-electoral-tribunal-validates-the-fraud/ I hope that answers your question. Julio
