Buying Votes In Argentina’s Election
I spent the past week covering the election for Al Jazeera English here in Buenos Aires. The Qatar-based network is just a year old, but it’s already the third-leading international TV news organization behind CNN and the BBC. It’s massive effort to cover the election, which included simultaneous live reporting from various parts of the country, was unrivaled by anyone in international news.
For those of you who’ve been in Argentina for a while, the idea that votes are bought will not come as a surprise. People openly talk about this and it certainly wouldn’t be news to Argentines. But it’s one thing to hear about such practices and another to see them in person.
Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo and the local production team captured all of this in the video posted here. AJ doesn’t yet have a signal in Argentina, but they put some of their videos on YouTube. The video is a fascinating look at how votes were bought on the verge of Sunday’s election.
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It would be interesting to know how much Al jazeera paid to those punteros. Not ARS $50.
Hey Taos, I believe that the fact that they receive something in exchange of a ballot DOES distort the results. However, you need to also understand that the vote is secret and people can change their vote when they are in the voting room (cuarto oscuro). That being said, I believe that this does have an impact, although the system itself allows people to vote whoever they want (if they can find the ballots…)
Ramiro