Comments on: May the Best Cheater Win

By: Idi

Idi — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:26:49 +0000

Listen up Shirzay (more like Spizoy or Kharzoy) you kuuni. I suggest you go to Jalalabad and say some of this crap. You are an idiot. Try saying something meaningful, MoFo.

By: Paffeu

Paffeu — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:23:57 +0000

Hi Julia, Thanks for your post… It very much confirms my thoughts that pattern of democratisation in Afganistan is very much the same pattern of democratisation in other countries of the earth just after theirs revolutions My favourite example is life of William Dampiers (English ‘pirate’ of early 1700) as presented in ‘Pirate of exquisite mind’.
Greetings from DownUnder…

By: Toryalay Shirzay

Toryalay Shirzay — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:06:45 +0000

Julia M,thanks for an excellent post.The Afghan people have been losing for a long,long time,actually it even goes as far back as when the Arabs invaded this land and imposed their evil religion and nasty customs and habits and eversince ,the Afghan people seen nothing but misery and loss. The elections are a farce because the Afghans are not ready to conduct an election that can be considered legitimate.For this ,they need to be educated first.All AFGHANS NEED TO UNDERGO PROPER EDUCATION ABOUT THE MERITS OF DEMOCRACY AND HOW TO CONDUCT LEGITIMATE ELECTION.This will take about 5 years while the country can be run by temporary governing councils with international help.Only then the Afghans will be able and eager to conduct legitimate elections.If not,all resources will be wasted and corruption will continue ,nothing meaningful will be accomplished,US/NATO/UN will look inept,islamic fascists will be emboldened and most likely the Taliban and their supporters in Pakistan,Saudi Arabia and the Gulf oil Shieks will be the winners,and all freedom loving people who want to live without the menace or fear of international terrorists and the Afghan people will all be the losers.

By: Schmedlap

Schmedlap — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:07:03 +0000

Well, I suppose the US does not have “ghost sites,” though I would assert that, in effect, there are locales that have the same impact. There are some locales in the US that are so solidly in the bag for one party that the likelihood of mass voter fraud is too high to not assume that it occurs. And while we do not have ghost sites, we certainly have ghost voters. Bussing in voters from outside of districts or registering homeless people are also common practice in tightly contested areas.

But, again, we have rules in place that help to mediate the disputes that arise from these games. When ballots are counted, it is standard practice to have representatives from at least the two major parties present to negotiate over what irregularities will be accepted and which will be tossed out. A buddy of mine was involved in this during the 2008 election. When I informed him that I cast a write-in vote for Seaman First Class Donald F. Duck in lieu of a candidate on the ballot, he informed me that my votes “probably weren’t counted” because both parties agreed to toss out ballots that had write-in candidates who were not actual people and he noted that this most likely resulted in my entire ballot being tossed (to include the US Presidential election, US Senator, US Rep, etc) – not just my vote for that one race. I think this might have been a misinterpretation of statute (write-in votes might be discarded as “overvotes” in some circumstances), but it was nonetheless how things worked out in practice.

The difference between our elections and theirs is not the level of corruption, but the sophistication of the laws and common practices that we have in place to address it to a degree that satisfies the people.

By: David M

David M — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:57:13 +0000

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 10/21/2009 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.

By: tequila

tequila — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:14:51 +0000

Well, there’s that, but there’s also the problem of “ghost sites” which are basically phantom voting sites that never existed or were never set up in the first place, often in places beyond government control. The ballots for these were collected, filled out by whoever had control of the distro process for these “ghost sites”, and turned in as legit votes.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1929210,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

By: Schmedlap

Schmedlap — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:36:30 +0000

The major difference between “vote fraud” in Afghanistan and in the US is that here in the US we have rules in place for accepting or rejecting questionable ballots – of which there are many in every election, at every level of government. Afghanistan apparently doesn’t have such rules in place, so the fraudulent votes are more controversial. Neither system suffers from a significantly greater degree of bad faith.