Proof Greedy Vampires Caught - By G. Simon

Greedy Vampires like Apaid and Baker should be arrested, tried and thrown in jail for life.

Read the article below:

____________... Ballot Boxes Found in Haiti

Wednesday February 15, 2006 6:01 PM

AP Photo PAP113

By ANDREW SELSKY

Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - U.N. officials sent troops to a garbage dump near the Haitian capital to collect hundreds of smashed ballot boxes and vote count material on Wednesday, more than a week after Haiti's disputed presidential elections.

Associated Press journalists saw hundreds of empty ballot boxes, at least one vote tally sheet and several empty bags, numbered and signed by the heads of polling stations, strewn across the fly-infested dump five miles north of the capital.

``That's extraordinary,'' said U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst.

Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that the Feb. 7 vote was marred by ``massive fraud or gross errors'' designed to leave him just short of the majority needed for a first-round presidential victory.

A wave of chaotic protests by Preval supporters sent foreign diplomats scrambling for peaceful solutions.

The United States and other countries ``directly involved in the crisis'' were discussing a plan to have other candidates recognize Preval's victory and prevent a mass uprising, according to Marco Aurelio Garcia, foreign affairs adviser to Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Brazil heads U.N. peacekeeping forces in Haiti.

Haiti's interim government had already ordered a review of the election results, promising on Tuesday to form a new commission to quickly review voter tally sheets.

Preval, the former protege of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has urged his supports to continue protesting nonviolently and says he will formally challenge the results if officials insist on holding a runoff in March.

When the most recent results were posted on Haiti's electoral council's Web site midday Monday, Preval - a former president and agronomist - had 48.76 percent of the vote with 90 percent of ballots counted.

He would need 50 percent plus one vote to win outright.

``The government wants to make sure that everything with the process is correct,'' interim Interior Minister Paul Magloire told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

``We're going to review the results because we want to make sure what we have is right.''

The commission would include representatives of the president's office, the electoral council and Preval's party, said Michel Brunache, chief of staff of interim President Boniface Alexandre.

Late Tuesday, the local Telemax TV news broadcast images from the dump north of the capital showing smashed white ballot boxes with wads of ballots strewn about.

Ballot after ballot was marked for Preval.

Among the bags seen by AP was one vote tally sheet from the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Carrefour that recorded 129 votes for Preval out of 202 cast.

A man picking through the dump, Jean-Ricot Guerrier, said a truck dumped the material a day after the election.

Someone tried to burn the material, but rain put out the fire, he said.

Wimhurst said the ballots could have come from any of nine polling stations across the country that were ransacked on election day, forcing officials to throw out up to 35,000 votes.

At least one voting center was destroyed by people tired of waiting in line, others were destroyed by political factions, he said.

Wimhurst also said it was possible someone dumped the ransacked ballots to create an appearance of fraud.

The electoral council issued a statement saying it will investigate the incident because it ``could cause confusion in the electoral process.''

The constitution indicates that a challenge would go to the Supreme Court, but the interim government recently decreed that any complaints should go to the electoral commission - the same body that is releasing the results.

The U.N. provided security for the vote and helped ship election returns to the capital but is not directly involved in counting ballots.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council urged Haitians to respect election results and refrain from violence, and it extended the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti for six months, until Aug. 15.

A runoff election would pit Preval against second-place finisher Leslie Manigat, also a former president, who received 11.8 percent of the vote.

Manigat's wife, Myrlande Manigat, declined to say whether anyone had approached him about withdrawing.

A popularly elected government with a clear mandate from the voters is seen as crucial to avoiding a political and economic meltdown in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

Gangs have gone on kidnapping sprees and factories have closed for lack of security.

Of the 2.2 million ballots cast, about 125,000 ballots have been declared invalid because of irregularities, raising suspicion among Preval supporters that polling officials were rigging the election.

Another 4 percent of the ballots were blank but were still added into the total, making it harder for Preval to obtain the 50 percent plus one vote needed

Reply to: Msg 36
Topic: Charles Henry Baker
Posted by G. Simon on 2/15/06 4:19 PM