Message-ID: <2A9852495@fs1.ec.man.ac.uk> Date: Fri, 3 Jul 1998 13:56:34 BST From: Dr Richard Heeks <mailto:mzdid10@FS1.EC.MAN.AC.UK> Subject: IT and Mexican Election Fraud To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
My thanks to those who replied to an earlier email about this topic, which describes how IT not only does not strengthen democracy in undemocratic situations, it can help reinforce undemocratic practices.The story briefly - in 1988 Carlos Salinas was candidate for Mexico's ruling PRI, with Cuauhtemoc Cardenas as his main opponent. Cardenas appeared to be ahead in opinion polls and in early reports of voting returns. Then the Unisys computer system being used to count votes 'broke down' and the declared result was Salinas 50.6% of the vote, Cardenas 31.1%.
Most reports have hinted at something fishy, but nothing more. The article I sought is: Sanders, J. (1994) 'Mexico: IT worker speaks out', Computing [London], July 7: p8.
The article reports that no computer crash ever occurred. Instead one of the data entry staff explains that, when they got to the elections office to input returns, they found no computers there. They were then bussed to a room in Government House with blacked out windows and began entering voting returns on the Unisys system. As it became clear that Salinas was losing, supervisors ordered staff to stop entering his results and only enter those for Cardenas (see below for an explanation of this).
At 3am, they were then told by supervisors 'If you care for your families, your jobs, and your lives, enter all votes from now on in favour of the PRI'. They were kept for 36 hours doing just that. It also emerged that, during a scheduled break when operators were away from their terminals, supervisory staff had made use of a pre-set fix to reverse all the earlier-entered Cardenas votes and change them into Salinas votes.
Eventually, as the fraud got out of control and fears about possible discovery rose, it was decided to release a story that the comupter system had broken down and that manually calculated results showed Salinas to be the winner. The percentage figures given were presumably plucked from the air as the best they could get away with.
So much, then, for hopes of a forthcoming golden age of electronic democracy.
Richard
--------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Richard Heeks Lecturer, Information Systems & Development Institute for Development Policy & Management University of Manchester Precinct Centre Manchester M13 9GH U.K. Phone: +44-161-275-2870 Fax: +44-161-273-8829 Email: mailto:Richard.Heeks@man.ac.uk IDPM Web: http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm ---------------------------------------------------------------------