Thursday, November 25, 2004

I’m following the Ukrainian presidential election with great interest. I have a “dumb” question. The “controversy” surrounds the vote outcome. There has been alleged widespread fraud that has tipped the vote for the government backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Okay, I’ll go along with that premise. So, what is this fraud? What happened? I can’t seem to get any help from the mainstream media. And this is no straw man set up to criticize the media. I really want to know. Here’s what various news organizations said the problems were. They all point to broad points that surely would constitute funny business, but they’re short on specifics and for examples.

NYT: Their [international election monitors] findings included abuse of state resources in favor of the prime minister, the addition of approximately 5 percent of new voters on the rolls on election day, duress upon students to vote for the state's choice, duress upon state workers to turn over absentee ballot forms for presumptive use by someone else, widespread abuse of absentee voters (including some who were bused from region to region), the blocking of poll workers, suspiciously high turnout in regions that supported the prime minister, inaccurate voter lists and overt bias of state-funded media.
Okay. Abuse of state resources. What does that mean? The blocking of poll workers. How does that favor one candidate over another? Abuse of absentee voters? If they are absentee, how are they being abused?
WaPo: International monitors identified a series of election abuses. In Donetsk, for instance, they reported unusually high turnouts in areas that favored Yanukovych -- as high as 96 percent of registered voters, compared with a 65.8 percent turnout three weeks ago for the first round of balloting.

Observers also said state workers were forced to apply for absentee ballots from their managers and that the filled-in ballots were collected at their places of work. Students were coerced to vote by their professors and deans, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. At a news conference, the monitors said there were too many violations for them to enumerate.
Again, not much context for alleged abuses that fall way short of doctoring the vote. But no help from the WaPo on navigating the charges.
USA Today: Both camps have complained of voting problems, and throughout Sunday there were numerous media reports of scuffles at polling stations, observers being barred and journalists being detained. One policeman guarding a polling station was found dead Sunday after apparently being hit over the head by intruders, news reports said.

Yushchenko and some of his associates went to the Central Election Commission early Monday, contending that some precincts showed improbably high turnout figures of as much as 96%. Some 79% of registered voters turned out to vote nationwide.

Yushchenko's campaign complained that Yanukovych supporters were given absentee ballots and bused out of their native regions and back again so they could vote twice.

Yanukovych's side, meanwhile, cited voter list problems and said some stations were refusing to give out absentee ballots in violation of Ukrainian law. Lawmakers had voted to prohibit the use of absentee ballots amid fears that they could be used to falsify the results, but Kuchma refused to sign the measure Friday.
Apparently, absentee ballots are a huge part of the controversy. But I’m not finding much in the way of explanation of how the absentee ballot process works in Ukraine. Generally, I’m commenting on an issue I follow and how the media is remiss or screwing up their coverage of it. Here is a situation where I’m Joe reader who would like some help and not surprisingly the U.S. media is not there for me. Great pictures of protesters; little in the way of in depth explanation. What a surprise. And also not surprisingly, going across the pond helps a great deal:
BBC: International election monitors say they believe Ukraine's presidential poll was not fully free and fair.

The Central Election Commission "displayed a lack of will to conduct a genuine democratic election" is how the main body co-ordinating international monitors put it on the day after the poll.

Below are the key findings of the International Election Observation Mission, which had 563 observers in Ukraine.

They were sent by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the EU parliament, the Council of Europe and Nato.

Favouring one candidate
"The abuse of state resources in favour of the prime minister demonstrated a widespread disregard for the fundamental distinction between the state and partisan political interests."

The state-funded media displayed "overt bias" which "continued to favour the prime minister in news presentation and coverage of the campaign".

Abuse of power
"Some citizens whose livelihood depends directly or indirectly upon the state were placed under duress to acquire and hand over to their superiors an absentee voting certificate".

"Observers reported that these documents were collected in the workplace on an organised basis."

Dubious data

The IEOM says the election was "compromised by significant shortcomings" including:
• the inability of the local state executive to produce accurate voting lists
• a lack of transparency in the tabulation of the first round results
• the reluctance of the Central Election Commission (CEC) to grant relief on complaints, thus impeding legal redress

POLLING DAY

Intimidation
"Observers reported that...a significant number of polling stations commissions (PSC) members had been dismissed or ejected".
"Police were present in a majority of polling stations visited. In some instances unauthorised persons were interfering in or directing the process."
The IEOM reports that harassment was greater than it had been in the first round of voting the previous month, and worst in central and eastern Ukraine. These regions appear to be more strongly pro-government.
Extra votes
"A high number of votes - approximately 5% - were added to voter lists on election day. Almost all the added voters used absentee certificates."
Voters using absentee ballot certificates "were transported by bus in a number of regions".

Mystery votes

"Despite the suspiciously high turnout in some regions, overcrowding was reported by IEOM observers to be less of a problem in eastern regions than elsewhere."
The IEOM gives two examples of suspiciously high turnout. Both cities are in eastern Ukraine - 96.3% turnout in Donetsk and 88.4% in Lugansk.
"Far fewer voters were turned away from polling stations due to inaccuracies in the voter list during the second round than in the first round, but once again there was a regional variation, with fewer voters being turned away in the east".

VOTE COUNTING

Open to tampering
"Problems included lack of sufficient attention to ballot security and counting procedures. In almost half of polling stations, unauthorised persons were present, including police and local government officials."
"The last minute dismissals by Territorial Election Commissions (TECs) of hundreds of Polling Station Commissions appointed by the opposition in Kirovohrad, a key marginal region, and others in Donetsk, Zakarpattiya, Zaporizhia, Kyiv, Khmlenitsky, Odessa and Volyn, lessened transparency."

Still some questions that linger in my mind but why can’t American sources give readers something like this? Sigh.

# posted 9:12 PM

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

More calls for U.S.-led diplomacy over Iran

Washington must step forward and lead multilateral Western pursuit of compromise. Its "bad cop" policy may have wrenched concessions from Iran, but as negotiations proceed, the United States must play a constructive role. Only Washington can offer security assurances that will assuage Tehran's fears of an Iraq-style "regime change," and US assent is necessary for Iranian WTO membership. The EU's access in Tehran has created an opportunity; the president must entice Tehran with a US-blessed deal.

# posted 9:38 PM

Saturday, November 20, 2004

The NYT editorial page says is déjà vu all over again with Iran this time. It’s curious how the major paper and news outlets are framing this as the “biggest challenge” of this final Bush term. Curious because it was the biggest challenge (one could also argue North Korea) of the last term – Bush and the media simply chose not to frame it that way.

One of the enduring stories surrounding this episode should be how this administration does not do diplomacy. There seems to be utter disdain for it. It’s one thing to be hawkish; it’s another to have no other tools in your foreign policy toolkit. Taking a superficial look back over major issues that confronted the Bush people during the first term, their use of diplomacy was mostly absent. The China-spy plane incident stands out as the only “success.” But what other choice was there in that situation. Middle East peace – failure; North Korea – failure. Iran – ignored. The failures though weren’t ones of collapsed negotiations but one of half-hearted attempts to appear to be doing something. President Bush’s response on North Korea in the first debate this year was utterly incoherent.

KERRY: Both. I want bilateral talks which put all of the issues, from the armistice of 1952, the economic issues, the human rights issues, the artillery disposal issues, the DMZ issues and the nuclear issues on the table.

LEHRER: And you're opposed to that. Right?

BUSH: The minute we have bilateral talks, the six-party talks will unwind. That's exactly what Kim Jong Il wants. And by the way, the breach on the agreement was not through plutonium. The breach on the agreement is highly enriched uranium. That's what we caught him doing. That's where he was breaking the agreement.
I've mentioned here before, it’s as if he views the multilateral talks rather than disarmament as the objective. It’s also striking that the president would try to stand behind the mantle of multilateralism given his administration’s “our way or the highway” approach to so many foreign policy issues.

But however the media like to put it out there as an option, there is no military solution to the Iran problem. This is a problem that can be solved through creative U.S-led diplomacy. Again, is that in the Bush toolbox? Not likely. The Bush people will either have to hope the Europeans come through or the next administration will be looking at nuclear armed Iran.

# posted 9:49 AM

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk is featuring a six part series on the pathetic job the mainstream media did covering the 2004 presidential campaign. It's up to part five. Check it out.

# posted 8:39 PM

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Bob Herbert, obviously a reader of the Fields Report, picks up on the ignorant voter angle of this year's presidential election.

I think a case could be made that ignorance played at least as big a role in the election's outcome as values. A recent survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that nearly 70 percent of President Bush's supporters believe the U.S. has come up with "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda. A third of the president's supporters believe weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. And more than a third believe that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion.

This is scary. How do you make a rational political pitch to people who have put that part of their brain on hold? No wonder Bush won.

The survey, and an accompanying report, showed that there's a fair amount of cluelessness in the ranks of the values crowd. The report said, "It is clear that supporters of the president are more likely to have misperceptions than those who oppose him."

I haven't heard any of the postelection commentators talk about ignorance and its effect on the outcome. It's all values, all the time. Traumatized Democrats are wringing their hands and trying to figure out how to appeal to voters who have arrogantly claimed the moral high ground and can't stop babbling about their self-proclaimed superiority. Potential candidates are boning up on new prayers and purchasing time-shares in front-row-center pews.
Herbert writes that he hasn't heard any post-election talk about this -- a fair point. My response: where were you, Bob (and the rest of the press corps), when this report came out, well before the election?

# posted 7:57 PM

Saturday, November 06, 2004

University of Virginia professor Paul Freedman looks at the election numbers and says the notion that values were the deciding factor is bogus.

Did "moral values"—in particular, the anti-gay marriage measures on ballots in 11 states this week—drive President Bush's re-election? That's the early conventional wisdom as Democrats begin soul-searching and finger-pointing. These measures are alleged to have drawn Christian conservatives to the polls, many of whom failed to vote last time. The theory is intriguing, but the data don't support it. Gay marriage and values didn't decide this election. Terrorism did.

…

Much has been made of the fact that "moral values" topped the list of voters' concerns, mentioned by more than a fifth (22 percent) of all exit-poll respondents as the "most important issue" of the election. It's true that by four percentage points, people in states where gay marriage was on the ballot were more likely than people elsewhere to mention moral issues as a top priority (25.0 vs. 20.9 percent). But again, the causality is unclear. Did people in these states mention moral issues because gay marriage was on the ballot? Or was it on the ballot in places where people were already more likely to be concerned about morality?

More to the point, the morality gap didn't decide the election. Voters who cited moral issues as most important did give their votes overwhelmingly to Bush (80 percent to 18 percent), and states where voters saw moral issues as important were more likely to be red ones. But these differences were no greater in 2004 than in 2000. If you're trying to explain why the president's vote share in 2004 is bigger than his vote share in 2000, values don't help.

If the morality gap doesn't explain Bush's re-election, what does? A good part of the answer lies in the terrorism gap. Nationally, 49 percent of voters said they trusted Bush but not Kerry to handle terrorism; only 31 percent trusted Kerry but not Bush. This 18-point gap is particularly significant in that terrorism is strongly tied to vote choice: 99 percent of those who trusted only Kerry on the issue voted for him, and 97 percent of those who trusted only Bush voted for him. Terrorism was cited by 19 percent of voters as the most important issue, and these citizens gave their votes to the president by an even larger margin than morality voters: 86 percent for Bush, 14 percent for Kerry.
I also tend to think the morality issue is bogus for the reason that other commentators have pointed out – what constitutes morals? A stance against gay marriage or one that is pro-environment? But I also tend to think the Democrats' problem was one of strategy, not message. This brings me back to Freedman’s conclusion, that terrorism was the deciding factor. The question then is: Why did all of these people continue to think that George W. Bush was the man to keep them safe from terrorism when he has a demonstrably terrible record on this issue? My answer to that question was confirmed by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). And that answer is that Bush supporters are divorced from reality (which is appropriate since so is he). As this report shows, not only are they ignorant facts on the ground, they’re ignorant of Bush’s own policies. I think this was the most underreported story of the late stages of the election and I’ll be writing more about it. This in my mind confirms that the problem is a strategic one. Leaving out divisive cultural issues like homosexuality and abortion, Bush supporters would clearly be better off with the policies of Democrats. The challenge is convincing them of that in the face of their construction of a reality which is to put it mildly, skewed.

# posted 9:56 AM

Friday, November 05, 2004

War gaming Iran scenarios. It doesn't look good.

# posted 6:54 PM

Read what my good friend Dan Pinkston (whose taught me mostly everything I know about North Korea) has to say about what faces the Bush administration vis-a-vis the DPRK during its second term. Oh yeah, it's faced the same reality for the last four years but what's that got to do with anything?

# posted 6:47 PM

The president's version of bipartisanship

With the campaign over, Americans are expecting a bipartisan effort and results. I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals.

# posted 8:40 AM

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Well, it's 9:26pm California time election night -- election night +1 on the East Coast. I told you so (much to my chagrin). I also apparently am very good with numbers. So if you need college football picks, be sure to let me know. Better yet, if you need paid political advice (you were wrong James Carville and I was right) I'm available. God help us the next four years.

# posted 9:25 PM