Reply #9: Me! Me! I did it! 5!

[Peace Patriot]

Whopping big voter turnout--70%! Very early returns put Funes ahead, but nothing solid until 7:30 PM El Salvador time, when they're going to provide prelim returns based on 45% of the vote.

Elizabeth, what's the time difference with California?

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Two good election sites...

http://latinamericanmusings.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/th... /

http://cispes.org/09electionsblog /
(But they've got a long Spanish post up there right now, about ARENA bringing in foreigners to vote. It'll take me some time to read it. (I'm not fluent.)

Here's part of it:

Police and media people had left and right when we thought the party was over, a bright shiny SUV with flags that said “Yo No Entrego a El Salvador” (an ARENA front group) passed by the headquarters with two more huge trucks full of 70 to 80 thin mattresses in the back.

Eventually they passed around the corner at a creeping pace. Again we thought the show was over and returned around the block to where we had parked, only to see both trucks again, waiting at the corner, presumably for command from their bosses. We spoke a little more with the police and decided before leaving to check the headquarters once more. We arrived in time to find the trucks mostly empty, and about 15 ARENA activists, sweating from panic and hardwork, hurrying the mattresses into the headquarters. The police didn’t do anything, but only later explained that people pass by with mattresses all the time.
Reports have also been made in other municipalities of hundreds of foreigners being housed in preparation for the vote.

NOTE: This is a report from two international election observers, about trucks carrying lots of mattresses and Nicaraguans to ARENA headquarters in San Salvador--supposedly to vote. They'd had a report of truckloads of Nicaraguans and went to investigate. They saw the mattresses being unloaded, but not the Nicaraguans. They tried to get the police to investigate, but they wouldn't. At least the election observers are doing their job--very well, it seems.