| Written by Maria Elena Salinas |
| Monday, October 28 2002 |
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| It's déjà vu all over again. Voters go to the polls. They are confused by the ballots. Fear of voting irregularities, corruption or incompetence is so great that the Center for Democracy is called in to monitor the elections. Local and federal authorities are taking special precautions. But this time I am not in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala or Panama. I am not in Peru, Colombia, Mexico or Argentina. I am in Miami-Dade County, Fla. USA.
In the past two decades, I have covered my share of elections in Latin America. In most, if not all, international observers have been present to assure the transparency of the voting process. I was in Peru when monitors from the Organization of American States, which was overseeing the elections, discovered massive fraud in the making. I was in Nicaragua when observers were responding to fears that the Sandinistas would not be willing to give up power. And I was in Panama when strongman Manuel Noriega ignored the monitors and called off the election when he realized that his candidate was losing, prompting violent protests.
That's life in the Third World. I never thought that it would be necessary to have elections supervised by outsiders in the United States. We are supposed to be the leading democracy in the world. I guess this proves that democracy is not perfect. We got our first wake-up call during the 2000 presidential elections, when the Supreme Court ended up calling the shots after the Florida fiasco. The September 2002 primaries showed us that improvements made to the voting system didn't improve it all that much. Dozens of polling places opened late. Hundreds of volunteers never showed up to work. New voting machines malfunctioned, and some even disappeared.
This time around, in order to ensure a fair and accurate vote on Nov. 5, voters in parts of Florida will have little guardian angels protecting them. The police department will be out in full force. The Justice Department will be sending civil-rights monitors. And the Miami-Dade County Commission will be paying those same observers from the Center for Democracy who oversaw elections in Latin America $92,000 to make sure no irregularities prevent people from casting their ballots. The only ones missing will be Jimmy Carter and the OAS.
Several county officials are insulted by the idea. Some say it makes them feel like they live in a banana republic. I have been in many of those so-called banana republics, and I can assure you that the presence of neutral eyewitnesses to an electoral process, in most cases, made all the difference in preventing major fraud and disenfranchisement of voters.
Election monitors in Florida will be making sure that no one who goes to the polls is left out of the loop. They will be there to resolve technical problems with voting machines and to supervise volunteers whose job is -- among other things -- to assist those in need and clear up any confusion. They have to make sure voters are not intimidated and that non-English speakers know that they can take a translator into the voting booth. And most of all, that all the votes are counted, and if they need to be recounted, so be it.
It takes a lot of guts to accept that we live in an imperfect democracy, and a lot of courage to do whatever it takes to try to perfect it. |
