Word: ballots
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...polling tables at locations around the country. The procedure was considered tamperproof: at each table, citizens were supposed to hand over their ID cards, to prevent double-voting. A precinct secretary would then look up the ID number on the computerized voting list, mark it, and hand out a ballot emblazoned with the party emblems of the competing candidates. After the voter marked his ballot and placed it in a transparent Lucite box (to forestall accusations of ballot-box stuffing), his ID card was stamped and his finger dipped in indelible ink. AL told, more than 180,000 people monitored...
...first major indication of trouble came when guerrilla commandos blew up power lines leading into the capital of San Salvador. The blackout began as election commissioners were handing out numbered ballots and ballot boxes for distribution to the local polling stations. Many officials simply left for the polls without their election materials. When delivered ballots failed to match up with local voting lists, both became useless. To top off the confusion, the election commission had delayed explaining the balloting system to voters until 72 hours before election...
Typical of the confusion was the scene at Flor Blanca stadium, the only location in San Salvador assigned to voters who had been uprooted by the civil war or who otherwise could not cast ballots in their local towns and villages. To find their proper polling table, voters were required to consult posted lists; few were able to find their names, even with the help of poll officials. As voters wandered back and forth in 100° temperatures, tempers flared. "This shows disrespect for the people," said Antonio Meléndez, a bearded mechanic who spent five hours...
...voting time drew near, the debate within the Knesset assumed the proportions of melodrama. Would one member return in time from Argentina? Would former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who had not been seen in public since he resigned last September, show up to cast the deciding ballot and thus bail out his successor, Yitzhak Shamir? In the end, it did not matter: the Knesset approved the opposition Labor Party's call for early elections, 61 to 58. Though the bill must survive three more votes, the balloting last week all but guaranteed that voters will go to the polls...
Zeigerman arrived in time to cast his ballot with the Likud, but Begin never emerged. As it turned out, his presence would not have helped: another Likud member defected and gave Labor its majority. Recent polls indicate that Labor, headed by Shimon Peres, would handily defeat Shamir's Likud bloc if voting were held now. When the election date is finally set, the campaign promises to be as fierce as any Israel has seen...