LAT: Mexico's Election May Rest on Federal Electoral Tribunal's 7 Votes

[DeepModem Mom]

Mexico's Election May Rest on 7 Votes
By Richard Boudreaux, Times Staff Writer
July 15, 2006

MEXICO CITY — Each morning, the seven judges who will decide Mexico's disputed presidential election are chauffeured into their gated office compound past a crowd of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's angry supporters.

"Where are our votes — in the garbage?" says one of the banners demanding that the Federal Electoral Tribunal overturn Felipe Calderon's narrow victory in the July 2 vote and certify Lopez Obrador as president-elect.

It has been 10 years since the current tribunal was created to police an electoral system long plagued by blatant fraud. In that time, the tribunal has nullified 17 local, state and congressional elections and ruled against each of Mexico's three major parties in roughly equal proportions.

But the judicial arbiter of Mexico's young democracy has never faced a challenge like this.

With tens of thousands of protesters backing him in the streets, Lopez Obrador, of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, is asking the tribunal for two rulings that would stretch legal precedent....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexcourt15jul15,0,6334346.story?coll=la-home-world

[PSPS]

1. Again with the "leftist" tag

[begin_within]

2. Reminds me of the Supreme Court getting involved in the 2000 election.

[Gman]

3. It's not really like the SCOTUS in 2000

The SCOTUS had no business getting involved in a state's rights issue like it did in FL in 2000. They knew it too when they said the case couldn't be used as precedent in the future.

On the contrary, the Mexican election board's job is to arbitrate this dispute. Although it will still be political.