Honest Voting

As I write these snippets about election fraud in the United States, I try to remember that elections in some other countries may be suffering far greater difficulties.

In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe has been widely accused of sabotaging, rigging, and outright stealing the country’s recent presidential election. A runoff election is planned, but, according to the Associated Press, no date for the runoff has been scheduled. Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, said yesterday that the runoff election should have been held within 21 days of the day the elections were announced, May 2nd. However, Zimbabwean government officials have said the electoral commission has up to a year to hold the vote.

Tsvangirai says that he won the first round outright and that official figures showing a second round was necessary were fraudulent. Zimbabwe’s ruling political party, ZANU-PF, has started its own runoff campaign, but members of Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change party say they face intimidation and violence if they even wear an MDC T-shirt. Tsvangirai left Zimbabwe on March 29th, the original election day, out of fear for his safety.

Whatever election rigging may be going on in the United States, it’s sobering to realize that it could be much, much worse.

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