Just as a point of information, would absentee ballots be available for people vacationing in Mexico, as they would be for those of us smart enough to get them in advance in the U.S.?  (Not a group that includes me.  I failed to vote my first two attempts, once because I thought I could just walk into my college town polling place -- wrong -- and again because I didn't mail my absentee ballot until election day -- also wrong.)

But just to reiterate, we don't need a census to figure out that there are more people out of their home towns due to economic circumstances than people on vacation.  And of course anyone in any class might vote for any party.  But again, two facts that lend the moral authority to the candidate of the left in a close election:

1. structural biases, intentional and unintentional, make it more difficult for poorer people to vote
2. the same people more likely to be excluded are more likely to vote for the left candidate

Sure, the candidate who would appear to have the plurality of support still has to play by the rules of votes that can be counted.  But being the popular choice seems to throw responsibility for proving that this count is honest on the system that excluded people in the first place.

And I'm not particularly impressed by a commmission stocked with balanced political appointees.  They will tend to favor social order over social justice.  The idea that social order favors the left is an interesting one, but in general not true.  To again refer to my home country, I think Al Gore could have called for vigilance in support of democracy, even called for his supporters to go into the streets to ensure the votes were counted, without calling for or risking an all-out revolution, or militias, or anything like that.

Not that there's anything wrong with revolution, but I think history has shown that before we try another revolution anywhere the revolutionary movement has to be more inclusive and democratic than the government it seeks to overthrow, with the highest degree of internal democracy possible, and not just a plan to do that stuff after taking power.

But revolution, chaos, or sitting at home are hardly the only options.

Any move toward real democracy, justice, and liberty can (in general) only be gained by widespread nonviolent civil disobedience at minimum, and ultimately by people taking more and more control of our lives into our own hands.

We don't make any progress waiting for those above to tell us what we want and what to do.

I want real democracy.  I think that includes voting.  But real democracy is not something we have, if only we sit back and request the orderly administration of a vote count every several years.  In Mexico, no matter who takes power, he will have the explicit sanction of what, less than 20 percent of the populace?  In the United States this figure is 25 percent.  All of this, everywhere, in an environment where communication is not free and fair, where money decides what messages go out, and essentially what our choices will be-- and furthermore with richer countries (or just the rich) able to rule over smaller and poorer countries with threats of economic reprisals, or armed invasion, regardless of such countries internal democracy.

Democracy is something we have to fight for, and more importantly organize for, democratically organize for and not allow provocateurs and state violence to stop or redirect our mass movement for self-rule, and the good things that can come from self-rule.  Maybe we're nowhere near ready with this mass movement.  On the other hand, maybe the Other Campaign is that movement in Mexico.  In either case, democracy (or justice or liberty or progress) is not served by a de facto coalition of the ruling elite and the apathetic.  We serve democracy (or liberty or justice or progress) by forming a coalition of all people who give a damn, and by trying to show everyone the possible roads to better lives for all.  One of those roads, indeed, is making sure elections aren't stolen.

~~
These words may or may not be reflective of my official capacity at People Who Give a Damn, but they seem sorta relevant somehow.