Data from forty-eight observers in Ouanaminthe
Data from nine observers in Port-au-Prince
Election Observed: Haiti--Presidential and legislative, first round
Date of poll: November 28, 2010
Date of report: December 7, 2010
Type/Extent of Observation:
Limited, short-term observation. Two accredited international observers and fifty-five Haitian national observers were deployed in two departments: Ouest, one team of nine; and Nord'Est, twelve teams totaling forty-eight. James R. Morrell of Washington, D.C., director of the Haiti Democracy Project, was head of mission. He conducted interviews of the president and four members of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) with respect to fraud prevention and containment and visited the Tabulation Center.
We begin with a brief textual résumé of the observation in and around Ouanaminthe and proceed to a compilation and graph presentation of the observers' findings based on a nineteen-page questionnaire which is reproduced alongside.
Both the voting and our observation proceeded fairly normally until mid-afternoon when the unruly crowds of government-party supporters which had been sporadically throwing rocks and bottles in the courtyards of the major voting centers of Ouanaminthe grew more intense, intruding into the BVs (polling places) and shots were heard on the nearby streets. Rumors spread that everyone inside would be shot, and most voters, perhaps some party poll watchers (mandataires), and unfortunately virtually all of our observers fled. With none of our observers there to witness, it appears that the BVs quickly concluded their work. The sealed sacks of returns would then have been handed over to the voting-center supervisors for delivery to MINUSTAH, the U.N. stabilization mission in Haiti. The supervisors as well as the departmental (BED) and communal (BEC) presidents were all ruling-party partisans.
The detailed questionnaires submitted below broadly reflect the above summary of the voting day in Ouanaminthe. The voting operations score fairly well on procedural issues, reflecting the relative peace prevailing at the voting centers during most of the morning and into the afternoon. But all the major questions on security, initimidation, illegal political activities, and interruptions of the vote drew high percentages of violations observed (posted below) from our observers, reaching an astonishing 97 percent for intimidation. In this section of the questionnaire, "the Voting Environment," our observers record the impact of the rent-a-mobs and shooting.
Two voting centers that we covered were located some distance from the center of town. They experienced almost normal voting, with the visit of the rent-a-mobs brief and quickly contained. It was only in these two centers that we succeeded in recording the closing and count, and in one the delivery of the sacks, intact, to Minustah.
OUANAMINTHE
OPENINGOuanaminthe (Item numbers below refer to numbers on questionnaire. Each unit represents one observer report.)
Opening proficiency
|
 |
