2006: Still Bugging People

Alberto Aziz Nassif picks at an old scab in yesterday’s column, thanks to a new book by José Antonio Crespo: The Weaknesses of the Mexican Electoral Authority. Aziz (and presumably Crespo) makes the case that the findings of the Federal Electoral Institute show that the true winner of the 2006 election is far from certain. The math, however, suggests otherwise: “While the difference was a little more than 233,000 votes, in the 150 districts analyzed there were more than 300,000 irregular votes proven.” So unless 80 percent of those votes were mistakenly cast for Calderón, or an equal number were meant for López Obrador but were not cast for the Tabascan, it wouldn’t make a difference. Given that neither man secured much more than a third of the vote total, such a scenario is all but impossible.

I hate to sound like a Republican defending the Florida tabulation, but to continue beating this horse is pointless. It’s impossible to know that López Obrador was defeated, but it’s equally impossible to prove that Rip Van Winkle was a work of fiction. The overwhelming preponderance of evidence from 2006 points to a narrow Calderón win. We have nothing, nothing, to suggest a 1988-style fraud, nor for that matter, a rushed, pseudo-cover up a la Florida in 2000.