Port-au-Prince & Washington, DC9 June 2009

Election Report

Elections Observed: Haiti: Senate, partial (twelve of thirty of Senate seats), first round

Date of poll: April 19, 2009

Date of report: June 9, 2009

Type/Extent of Observation: Limited, short-term observation. Eleven accredited internationalobservers were deployed in three departments: Ouest (Port-au-Prince, one team of three and oneof two); Nord-Est (two teams of two) and Nord (one team of two). These original eleven werejoined by a twelfth for post-electoral observation. Observers conducted interviews of theelectoral commission (Conseil Electoral Provisoire, CEP) and U.N. Mission for the Stabilizationof Haiti (MINUSTAH) staff with respect to areas not directly observed.

2303 17th St. N.W. • Washington, D.C. 20009 • http://haitipolicy.org haiti@haitipolicy.org

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I. Extremely Low Voter Turnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

II. Assault on the Vote in the Central Plateau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

III. Fraud in the Nord Department . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8A. Milot—A city of phantom votes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8B. Ballot-stuffing in l’Acul du Nord . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

IV. Lax Counting Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13A. Disallowed returns in Cité Soleil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13B. More votes than voters in Fonds-Verrettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15C. Undercounting the blank vote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15D. Gross mathematical error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18E. Lack of transparency of Tabulation Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18F. Lack of transparency to media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

V. Weak Firewall Between Electoral and Executive Branches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19A. Membership of commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19B. The ouster of Jacques Bernard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20C. Scheduling an election for a seat already held . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21D. Disqualifying a major political party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22E. Qualifying suspected criminals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23F. Failing to hold elections leading to permanent CEP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25A. Recommendation for electoral observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Observer Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26A. The Haiti Democracy Project’s observer team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27B. The technical process on election day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

1. Internal Proficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272. Resistance to External Threats to the Voting Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313. General Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344. Closing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355. Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366. Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

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1“2009 North Department Cap-Haïtien Election Observation,” report filed by observers of the Haiti Democracy Project,

May 11, 2009.

2Commission Episcopale Nationale Justice et Paix, Observation électorale 19 avril 2009, p. 6, at

http://www.ijdh.org/pdf/headline4-29-09c.pdf?OpenDocument.

I. Extremely Low Voter Turnout

Somewhere between 10 and 12 percent of registered voters actually cast ballots. SomeHaitian commentators have questioned even this level, but the evidence brought against it is onlyanecdotal.

This figure is in the usual range for Haitian elections toward which the population hasreservations, either to express dissatisfaction with the candidate choices and governmentalperformance, or because it suspects fraud. On the other hand, Haiti has scored a greater than60 percent turnout for elections in which there was a variety of contrasting candidates and theresults were not considered predetermined.

The low level of participation warrants thorough examination (beyond the scope of thislimited observation.) According to interviews conducted by our observers, the main reasonswere:

1. Fatigue with the government of René Préval, which, according to interviewees, was doingnothing to move Haiti forward. Voters deliberately abstained to show their dissatisfactionwith the government.1

2. The exclusion of a major party, Lavalas, from participation, resulting in the call by some(not all) Lavalas leaders for an election boycott. Some voters may have stayed home insympathy with the boycott; others may have feared reprisals if they were seen voting, ormay have had a generalized fear of disturbance at the polls.

3. Logistical difficulties including the late posting of voter lists making it difficult for someto know where they were voting; and the ban on public transportation and private cars onelection day making it difficult for many to get to the polls.

4. Traditionally lower turnout for non-presidential elections.

These findings of ours dovetailed with those of another observer group, the Justice andPeace Commission of the Catholic Church, which sent five hundred Haitian observers into thefield. It also cited the exclusion of Lavalas, fear, logistical difficulties, and the non-presidentialnature of the election. It underlined “lack of confidence of the citizens in the institutions of thestate.” They did not believe in the capacity of the state or the senate to better their livingconditions. “People identified the senate with corruption and scandals.”2

The Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, which sent fifty observers, alsoreported, “The population boycotted the elections.” It cited the ban on public transport, thethreats of violence, the “questionable morality” of certain candidates, and the behavior of certain

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3Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, “Rapport du RNDDH sur les Elections Sénatoriales Partielles,” June

2009, p. 9, at http://haitipolicy.org/Rapport.pdf.

4Radio Kiskeya, “La Sénatrice Edmonde Supplice Beauzile (Centre, Fusion) dénonce des menaces contre sa personne de

la part du député Willo Joseph, candidat au Sénat” (April 17, 2009, at http://radiokiskeya.com/spip.php?article5837.)

elected officials. It noted that President Préval had said on April 16, “Although voting is a civicduty, it is not obligatory,” a formula which it said made the population even more skeptical.3

Recommendations:

1. The reasons for the low turnout should be explored carefully and with alacrity. The possibilitythat the low turnout is tethered to low confidence in the government should be consideredcarefully and, if found to be a significant contributing factor, should be addressed with policyinitiatives. Intensive effort to improve government performance is needed. Without resolution ofthe issues that led to the low turnout in the April senatorial election, it is possible that scheduledelections in June and November will suffer from the same fate—raising eventual questions aboutgovernment legitimacy.

2. It is important to resolve quickly the registration and leadership issues (discussed below) thatprevented Lavalas from registering in this election. Without their resolution, the turnout andlegitimacy questions raised above will be exacerbated.

II. Assault on the Vote in the Central Plateau

On April 19, the electoral commission annulled the elections in the Department of theCentre after a series of violent incidents and invasion of polling places. A number of governmentofficials and candidates were allegedly implicated, chief among them Willot Joseph, a deputy inthe lower chamber and senatorial candidate for the UCADDE party. Joseph had long beenallegedly implicated in political violence and had served time for car theft. UCADDE, l’Uniondes Citoyens Haïtiens pour la Démocratie et le Développement, is described as a new partyreputedly close to the Haitian government.4 The president of this party, Rodol Pierre, is the vice-president of the electoral commission. It is unusual for an electoral commission to have apolitical party official as a member because of the conflict of interest.

The problems that overtook the voting in the Central Plateau were deeply rooted in thephenomenon of impunity—an issue which the church’s Justice and Peace Commissionobservation report also underlines, and one which threatens the credibility of the elections ofApril 19, 2009. Willot Joseph, reputedly a violent Lavalas activist in the past, was one of Haiti’sso-called “untouchables.” Eight years ago, on March 16, 2001, Amnesty International reportedthat he, then mayor of Maïssade, Central Plateau, had threatened to kill former justice of thepeace Ossagnol Servil. In October 2000 Servil had issued an arrest warrant for two men accusedof theft who were supporters of Joseph. The mayor and his supporters then led a demonstrationoutside the courthouse, burning tires, ransacking the judge’s offices and reportedly demanding

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5Amnesty International, “Fear for Safety: Haiti, Ossagnol Servil” (March 16, 2001; UA 65/01, AMR 36/005/2001.

6Radio Kiskeya, “La Sénatrice Edmonde Supplice Beauzile dénonce,” ibid.

7Doha Centre for Media Freedom, “Menaces intolérables contre un journaliste,” at

http://www.dohacentre.org/Menaces-intolerables-contre-un,1550.html?lang=fr

8Statement of Exsersive Servile, délégue départmental, April 22, 2009 in Institut de l’Education Démocratique, Rapport

de l’IMED sur le déroulement des elections dans le départment du Centre, p. 4, at http://haitipolicy.org/content/4184.htm.The Haiti Democracy Project is grateful to Stanley Lucas for bringing this report to our attention.

that he be fired and replaced with someone more sympathetic to the mayor’s political party, theFanmi Lavalas of then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. According to Amnesty’s action alert,Joseph formed armed gangs to help run the areas he controlled, acting in the name of FanmiLavalas. The groups, in Amnesty’s words, threatened to “destroy the rule of law and the authorityof the police.”5

Joseph went on to be elected deputy in the lower chamber in 2006, despite the fact that hewas then in jail on charges of having stolen a car. Two days before the election of April 19, 2009,Sen. Edmonde S. Beauzile of the Department of the Centre, Fusion of Social Democrats Party,accused him of plotting to assassinate her.6

On the day of the election, Joseph allegedly threatened a reporter of Radio Kiskeya. “Ihave thought about it and I now understand why reporters are killed," Joseph reportedly said."They have no respect. Whether you reporters want it or not, I will be elected senator." Thecandidate’s brother confiscated a reporter’s tape recorder.7

According to the departmental delegate—the chief representative of the centralgovernment in the Central Plateau—the actions of the political parties seeking to stuff the ballotboxes overwhelmed the security measures of the police and MINUSTAH. When this officialtried to vote at Pandiassou, outside Hinche, at 8:00 a.m., there were already no ballots left. Atthat voting center, the poll workers stuffed the ballot boxes with ballots for Joseph on orders oftheir superiors. The supervisor of the voting center said he could not resist because of the absenceof police. At the town of Papaye, where Haiti’s largest peasant organization is headquartered, therepresentatives of Lespwa, President René Préval’s former party, vandalized the voting center inretaliation against these earlier irregularities.8

In December 2008 Willot Joseph allegedly shot at members of the peasant union inPapaye. On April 19, 2009, a poll worker in Papaye was severely beaten when he refused toabandon his post. Other poll workers returned or remained until they could give depositions tojudicial officials later in the afternoon.

According to the departmental delegate, Willot Joseph savagely beat a teacher affiliatedwith the Fusion Party. Members of Joseph’s party assaulted his former associate PompealNorbert, affiliated with Lespwa.

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9Ibid., p. 5.

The police chief of Hinche reported that he had arrested two individuals transportingballots marked in favor of Joseph. They were released without explanation by the prosecutor inHinche. The police chief confirmed invasions of voting centers to stuff the ballot boxes. Thesewere especially common in the rural areas.9

According to the police chief of the entire department, the troubles stemmed from WillotJoseph’s abuse of his parliamentary immunity. In 2006, he had struck the mayor of Maïssadewithout risk of prosecution. On the morning of April 19, the police chief continued, Josephblocked the entrance of Hinche with his pickup truck. Heavily armed, and with a crowd of hissupporters, he prevented the Fusion senatorial candidate from entering. The police did nothing.

Again according to the police chief, Joseph had a secret airstrip outside of Maïssade.From December 2008 to April 2009, twenty planes had landed. Earlier, this police official said,he had destroyed five other airstrips attributed to Joseph.

According to other witnesses interviewed by a Haitian organization, Mobile Institute forDemocratic Education, Joseph and his supporters including serving and former governmentofficials chased out all the electoral officials at five voting centers and stuffed the ballot boxes.They forced electoral officials to sign the returns at gunpoint. They beat up a party poll-watcherunhindered by police. At other voting centers, they forced party poll-watchers to stuff the ballotboxes with votes for Joseph. Some poll watchers refused. At another voting center Josephunsuccessfully attempted to bribe election workers.

An incident reported at the voting center of Hatty made clear the extent of the assault onthe electoral apparatus. The electoral supervisor reportedly demoted a prospective president of apolling place to secretary to make room for UCADDE partisans as president and vice-president.The secretary protested to no avail. UCADDE partisans were put in charge of all five pollingplaces at this voting center. UCADDE supporters, including serving government officials, thenappeared at the polling places without voting cards and voted multiple times in all the pollingplaces. When the secretary protested, she was told there were no police to protect her and sherisked getting beaten. The secretary attempted to leave and refused to sign a false statement. Onher way out, she was molested in the courtyard.

There was testimony that the ballot-stuffing had begun the previous day and that policehad been bribed.

An employee of the social-security administration said that Joseph had placed twenty ofhis supporters into paid jobs at that government office, although they were said to be totallyunqualified and had not passed the exams. With those twenty, the office had doubled itscomplement since 2007. According to the vicar-general of Hinche, Joseph owed his popularity tothe jobs he had got for his supporters there and in the high school.

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10Ibid.

11The report of the Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, “Rapport du RNDDH sur les Elections Sénatoriales

Partielles,” June 2009, at http://haitipolicy.org/Rapport.pdf also has extensive coverage of the violence in the CentralPlateau.

A former prosecutor in Hinche laid the blame on the large number of governmentofficials interfering in the elections and using government vehicles and resources. He said thatthe minister of agriculture, Joanas Gue, was among them.10

The Haiti Democracy Project considers that the electoral commission acted promptly andcorrectly in annulling the elections in the Central Plateau, where the electoral apparatus wassubjected to a heavy assault from within and without. If MINUSTAH urged the commission totake this step, then it is to be commended as well.

It is clear, however, that nearly two months after the violent assault on the elections ledby Willot Joseph, no criminal charges have been brought against him either for this rampage orhis previous violence, and he remains inscribed as a candidate for the Haitian senate. Theimpunity for Joseph and similar criminals tarnishes the image of elections and the legislature inwhich they would assume the title of “senator.”

The Haiti Democracy Project also commends the many election workers and party poll-watchers who resisted the corruption of the vote in the Central Plateau, often at the risk of theirlives. Theirs is the courage that will put Haiti on its upward path. With proper security andadministrative support, they might have saved the election in this province.

At this writing, in addition to the thorough inquiry by the Mobile Institute for DemocraticEducation, separate probes by the electoral commission, the parliament, and other governmentbodies are underway.

In the last elections in 2006, the Haiti Democracy Project sent six experienced Haitian-American observers to the Central Plateau. From Belladère to Hinche, they reported a calm,smoothly-running operation. In 2009, the constraints on our resources prevented us fromdeploying there. Thus, we have quoted extensively from the report of the excellent MobileInstitute for Democratic Education.11

Taken together, the incidents in the Central Plateau were more than irregularities. Theywere a premeditated attempt either to alter the vote, or to assault the entire electoral process.

Recommendation: MINUSTAH working with others in the international communityshould galvanize relevant Haitian institutions (CEP and judicial authorities) to conduct a swiftand thorough investigation into the incidents in the Central Plateau and to sanction thoseresponsible. It is especially important that political leaders, including those with parliamentary

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12Robert Benodin, “Thèmes d’Emission de la Semaine,” May 9, 2009, on Radio Classique Inter, at

http://www.haitipolicy.org/content/4187.htm.

13“Milot: un cas exceptionnel,” Le Nouvelliste, May 14, 2009 at

http://www.lenouvelliste.com/article.php?PubID=1&ArticleID=70257&PubDate=2009-05-14

Nord Department turnout outside of Milot. Data: CEP.

immunity, be subject to appropriate punishment, in order to demonstrate that no one is beyondrule of law.

III. Brazen Fraud in the Nord Department

A. Milot—A city of phantom votes

On April 27, the electoral commission posted on its website returns from the northerntown of Milot claiming a nearly 100-percent turnout in many polling places, as against 8 percentfor the rest of the Nord Department. Of the votes purportedly cast, 95 percent were for onecandidate, Moïse Jean-Charles. He is a top adviser to President René Préval working out of thepresidential palace. He is also wanted by courts in Cap-Haïtien for murder and political violence.With the 12,784 votes claimed from the one town of Milot the suspected murderer stood at 49percent in the rankings, just short of winning on the first round. Without them, he was neck-to-neck with other candidates.

The candidate then challenged eventhe 49 percent, claiming that with two morepolling places reporting he had 51 percentand a first-round win. The departmentalelectoral commission ruled promptly in hisfavor.

On May 9, Robert Benodin, aHaitian-American political analyst affiliatedwith an opposition party, sounded the alarmon his Orlando, Fla. radio program “Thèmesd’Emission de la Semaine,” carried onRadio Classique Inter.12 Benodin’s analysiswas diffused by a Cap-Haïtien radio station,Réseau Citadelle, directed by Cyrus Sibert.The National Democratic Institute did ananalysis of the bogus votes.13

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14The Haiti Democracy Project’s election observers do not rely on information received from journalists, who might

come with an agenda. However, the word of journalists may be good to indicate areas that need investigation. In this case,the information was borne out.

15Bureau du Contentieux Electoral National, Extrait des Minutes du Greffe du BCEN,May 20, 2009, at

http://www.cep-ht.org/Documents/Results_Sen2009_1/Jugement_BCEN_NORD.pdf.

16Http://www.cep-ht.org

During their observation in Cap-Haïtien on April 19, our observers interviewed a Haitianradio reporter who said that turnout in Milot had been very light.14

When an opposition candidate from the Fusion Party, Marie Gislhaine Monpremier,challenged the Milot returns, her challenge was dismissed by the departmental electoral bureau.In an appeals challenge to the central CEP, she questioned the neutrality of the departmentalelectoral president.

Finally, after two weeks of outcry against the figures from Milot, the CEP acceptedMonpremier’s challenge and disallowed 12,158 fraudulent votes from Milot.15

Reviewing the figures from Milot received at the tabulation center, the CEP ruled, “Thereports of the supervisors of the voting centers as well as those by national and internationalobservers indicated a low turnout . . . It is evident that there was a stuffing of the ballot boxes.”

The Haiti Democracy Project commends the CEP for discarding the fraudulent returns. Itevidently had to resist considerable political pressure from Jean-Charles, if not higher-ups, to doso. After the Nord departmental electoral board validated Jean-Charles’s claim to win in the firstround, the head of the board hurried to Port-au-Prince with the claim. On the other hand, theoutcry that was begun by Robert Benodin on his radio was extended to newspapers and radios inHaiti and was soon amplified by a valid candidate appeal. The decision of the electoralcommission, although required by the evidence, was highly significant.

There were three major limitations to the CEP’s action, however, which still leave thefuture integrity of the Nord Department vote in doubt:

1. The CEP only made its corrections in response to external challenges rather than byinternal review. Its method was to receive the implausible returns and list them as valid,and only disallow them when problems were unavoidably brought to its attention. Indeed,as of this writing (June 7, 2009), three weeks after their disqualification, the rejectedreturns are still listed as valid on the CEP’s website.16

2. In no case, even when it found fraud, did the commission proceed to disqualify orprosecute the candidates responsible. It is called on to do so by Article 211 of theelectoral code. The CEP merely said, “There is no way to positively identify thoseresponsible for the fraud,” totally leaving them off the hook. The most it would do was

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dock the candidate the fraudulent votes. Thanks to this astonishing docility, thoseengaged in an assault on the electoral apparatus enjoyed complete impunity throughout, toencourage their imitators around the country and presumably to return with a new assaultin the next round. In the Nord Department, Jean-Charles remains listed as candidate infirst place, poised to be invested with the title of “senator” of Haiti.

3. Major safeguards in the system were breached when both the communal electoral boardof Milot and the departmental board of the Nord certified and transmitted over twelvethousand fake returns to the CEP. There were seven voting centers in Milot with thirty-one polling places. The returns of all but a few were falsified. The subversion of themachinery was broad and deep.

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The Fraudulent Vote in Milot

For Jean-

BV Valid Spoiled Unused Invalid Charles

Ecole nationale de l'Ecuyer

03-27-72-06-01-1-1 449 15 9 413

03-27-72-06-01-1-2 424 3 38 5 397

03-27-72-06-01-1-3 118 0 348 8 105

Ecole Nationale de Lambert

03-27-72-06-01-2-1 439 1 30 2 427

03-27-72-06-01-2-2 440 0 10 11 429

03-27-72-06-01-2-3 433 1 3 19 396

03-27-72-06-01-2-4 437 0 29 1 411

03-27-72-06-01-2-5 415 0 49 5 399

03-27-72-06-01-2-7 404 1 53 3 389

03-27-72-06-01-2-8 135 0 334 1 129

Ecole Misericorde de K-Milot

03-27-72-06-02-3-1 282 10 175 0 273

03-27-72-06-02-3-2 195 5 274 5 158

Ecole Eben Ezer de Barrière Battan

03-27-72-06-02-4-1 440 2 13 8 433

03-27-72-06-02-4-2 415 0 44 15 404

03-27-72-06-02-4-3 440 9 19 3 432

03-27-72-06-02-4-4 426 0 37 6 413

03-27-72-06-02-4-5 274 1 194 5 271

Ecole Nationale Carrefour des Pères

03-27-72-06-03-5-1 389 1 65 11 372

03-27-72-06-03-5-2 397 0 56 11 385

03-27-72-06-03-5-3 419 0 35 15 379

03-27-72-06-03-5-4 335 0 107 2 326

03-27-72-06-03-5-5 80 0 392 3 75

Maison privée Fans Jean

03-27-72-06-03-6-1 267 0 200 5 244

03-27-72-06-03-6-2 365 0 103 5 344

03-27-72-06-03-6-3 35 0 435 0 33

Ecole d'Application de Milot

03-27-72-06-88-7-2 423 1 49 1 418

03-27-72-06-88-7-3 417 0 33 18 393

03-27-72-06-88-7-4 454 2 10 0 441

03-27-72-06-88-7-5 434 0 14 2 407

03-27-72-06-88-7-6 444 2 19 8 425

03-27-72-06-88-7-7 418 0 50 5 397

03-27-72-06-88-7-8 449 0 23 2 436

03-27-72-06-88-7-9 468 1 15 2 441

03-27-72-06-88-7-10 386 3 57 21 345

03-27-72-06-88-7-11 423 2 30 10 405

03-27-72-06-88-7-12 15 0 455 470 13

Totals 12,784 45 3,813 697 12158

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B. Ballot-stuffing in l’Acul du Nord

Another candidate, Jean René Jacques Laguerre, was allegedly caught stuffing the ballotboxes in three voting centers. On election day, he and his agents caused such a commotion thatMINUSTAH had to intervene with tear gas. After a challenge by opposition candidates, the CEPdeclared 4,539 votes fraudulent and discarded them.

The same pattern as experienced in Milot held true:

1. The CEP’s response was basically to accept the results as they came into the tabulation centerand wait for opposition candidates to present their challenges.2. No legal action was taken against the candidate, although the loss of his 4,539 fraudulent votesknocked him out of the race.3. No action was taken against the electoral officials who certified these 4,539 fraudulent votes.

Fraudulent votes comprised 53 percent of the total Jean-Charles claimed from the wholeprovince, and 44 percent of those claimed by Jean René Jacques Laguerre.

The Haiti Democracy Project deployed two accredited observers to the Nord Departmentfor the April 19, 2009 elections. They deployed in Cap-Haïtien. In the last round of 2006, wedeployed six to the department, including two to l’Acul du Nord.

Recommendations: The CEP should investigate the police and court certificates submittedby Moïse Jean-Charles to find out why his pending cases were not listed. On verification of thesecases Moïse Jean Charles should be disqualified immediately under Article 94(f) of the electioncode barring suspected criminals from candidacy, and his pending cases should be promptlybrought to trial. President Préval should immediately dismiss the suspected murderer from hisposition as chief presidential adviser. Jean-Charles should be investigated for the Milot fraudunder Article 211 procedures and sanctioned as appropriate.

Jean René Jacques Laguerre should be investigated in the l’Acul du Nord fraud underArticle 211 and sanctioned as appropriate.

The chiefs of the Nord BED and Milot BEC should be immediately suspended pendingthe outcome of an investigation, and similar action is indicated against all others involved inwhat was evidently a widespread conspiracy to defraud the electorate. The electoral apparatus ofthe Nord needs to be completely overhauled and restaffed.

No electoral returns should be listed or counted by the CEP until it has carried out arigorous internal review of their validity. It is not the responsibility of candidates to verifyreturns, it is the CEP’s. The “final returns” recently published should be withdrawn.

13

17Haiti Democracy Project, “Observing the Count at the CEP,” frame 29: “The system worked,” Powerpoint Presentation

of “Final Report: Election Observation Mission to Haiti, December 3, 2006,” athttp://www.haitipolicy.org/December%203%20Parts%202-3_files/frame.htm.

18Other corrections were made regionally in the Artibonite.

19Bureau du Contentieux Electoral National, Extrait des Minutes du Greffe du BCEN, May 17, 2009, at

http://www.cep-ht.org/Documents/Results_Sen2009_1/Jugement_BCEN_OUEST_affaire_MD_Claude.pdf

IV. Lax Counting Procedures

Confronted with the reality of candidates in various parts of the country using variousruses to falsify the vote, the CEP’s response was basically to accept the results as they came intothe tabulation center and wait for opposition candidates to present their challenges. Thiscontrasted with the procedure used in 2006. At that time, the CEP’s administrator, JacquesBernard, sent a battery of lawyers to the tabulation center to go over suspect returns with a fine-toothed comb.17 The numbers were corrected before they were posted, and without the candidatehaving to lodge a challenge.

In 2009, the improbably high figures from Milot, similar figures from l’Acul du Nord,more votes than voters in Fond-Verrettes, disproportionate figures from Cité Soleil—all wereautomatically accepted as valid and are so listed to this day. The CEP applied no verificationmethod of its own, not even a mathematical model, much less a proactive effort to analyze andcompare returns. All the burden of verification fell on candidates, journalists and electionobservers. No one knows how much other fraud went on and was certified by this lax procedure.One only knows that the results were not verified by any acceptable method.

In sections A and B below we present the only other returns that were corrected by theCEP.18 Are these the only other misstated returns from the rest of the country? Or are they onlythe tip of the iceberg? We may never know.

A. Disallowed returns in Cité Soleil

In Port-au-Prince, the Fusion Party candidate Marie Denise Claude, in her challenge ofthe results, alleged that the elections in the entire Ouest Department had been poorly organizedand fraught with irregularities and fraud. She said votes were stolen from her in Fonds Verrettes,Cité Soleil, Carrefour, and Croix des Bouquets.

The electoral commission sent a committee to the tabulation center to check the results.The investigation was limited to the issue of proportionality. It concluded that in the votingcenter of Centre Pilote, Cité Soleil, ten of thirty-four polling places reported figures claiming“excessive numbers of voters compared to other polling places in the same center and which didnot reflect the general turnout in the elections.”19 See below table, “CEP: ‘Excessive Voters.’” Itdisallowed the figures from these ten.

14

Data: CEP, Centre Pilote, “Excessive voters in comparison to other

polling places.”

The CEP is to be commended for going this far. However, applying the sameproportionality yields nine more returns from this voting center that are no less suspect:

Nine other suspect returns from same voting center

Centre Pilote

BV Candidate Votes

01-09-26-19-02-6-4 John Joël Joseph 75/84

01-09-26-19-02-6-12 John Joël Joseph 134/164

01-09-26-19-02-6-18 John Joël Joseph 123/144

01-09-26-19-02-6-26 John Joël Joseph 45/59

01-09-26-19-02-6-28 John Joël Joseph 60/116

01-09-26-19-02-6-31 John Joël Joseph 61/80

01-09-26-19-02-6-32 John Joël Joseph 53/75

01-09-26-19-02-6-33 John Joël Joseph 73/84

01-09-26-19-02-6-34 John Joël Joseph 80/91

Data:CEP.

In a neighboring voting center, the Foyer Culturel Saint Vincent de Paul, the investigatingcommittee found one instance of such disproportionality among thirty-four polling places anddisallowed these results, whereas we find seven others:

15

Ecole Foyer Culturel St Vincent de Paul

01-09-26-19-88-11-6 John Joël Joseph 75/99

01-09-26-19-88-11-7 John Joël Joseph 55/113

01-09-26-19-88-11-8 John Joël Joseph 78/109

01-09-26-19-88-11-15 John Joël Joseph 88/97

01-09-26-19-88-11-22 John Joël Joseph 98/150

01-09-26-19-88-11-33 John Joël Joseph 101/151

01-09-26-19-88-11-36 John Joël Joseph 145/167

Data:CEP

For the April 19, 2009 elections, the Haiti Democracy Project sent two observers to boththese Cité Soleil voting centers, Centre Pilote and Foyer Culturel St-Vincent.

B. More votes than voters in three Fonds-Verrettes polling places

Ecole Nationale de Fonds-Verrettes

Return no. Candidate Voters Votes

SE-13532 John Joël Joseph 41 111

Ecole Nationale d'Orianie

SE-13536 John Joël Joseph 14 140

SE-13532 (sic) John Joël Joseph 23 104

Data: CEP

Recommendation: The CEP should institute a screening process to intercept suspect returns, asdid its predecessor in 2006. It should use the other investigatory tools at its disposal, not merelymathematical models. It should rigorously investigate likely fraud and initiate proceedingsagainst the candidates responsible for it.

C. Undercounting the blank vote

Reacting to a questionable reallocation of the blank vote to bump President Préval overthe top in February 2006, the framers of the election law of 2008 took two steps to protect it inthe future. First, they provided explicitly that it could not be allocated to any candidate: “Article166.1 En aucun cas, les votes indiquant « aucun candidat ou aucun cartel », ne peuvent êtreattribués à quelque candidat ou cartel que ce soit.”

To further safeguard the blank vote, they also provided a special space on the ballotwhere the voter could choose “aucun candidat,” and specified that this vote would be valid andcounted in the totals.

16

Election returns issued by CEP, April 27, 2009. Refer to this chart for Section C, “Undercounting the

blank vote,” and Section D , “Gross mathematical error.”

However, the framers of the law failed to foresee the situation that results when twosenators are elected at the same time. In this case a large number of blank votes pile up when asmany as half of the voters only vote for one senatorial candidate, leaving the other choice blank.There is no place on the ballot to mark this choice explicitly, since one cannot both vote for acandidate and fill in the space for “aucun candidat;” in most polling places, that would seemcontradictory and be declared a spoiled ballot. There is only the possibility to vote for one senatorand leave it at that.

The issue took on symbolic importance in the Nord-Est Department, where the electorshad three times elected Rudolph Boulos as senator only to have him expelled from the senate onquestionable grounds when he lost out in the ongoing political struggle. Even as the senator wasmaking progress in regaining his seat, the electoral commission declared a new election for it. Senator Boulos is a founding member of the Haiti Democracy Project.

17

20In the Artibonite, where there were also two senate seats open, there was an even larger blank vote without any issue of

sympathy for an ousted senator.

Boulos relied on his broad popularity in the Nord’Est Department. “Go in and vote forone candidate of your choice,” he implored in radio spots, “but give me your other vote byleaving the second choice blank.”

Some 23,907 out of the 43,100 whovoted did exactly that. Together with a handfulof others, there were 24,377 blank votes fromthe province. These 24,377 blank votes were64 percent greater than the votes received byany single candidate there. With them, manyvoters seemed to express, if only symbolically,their support for the ousted senator. How manydid so deliberately for him and how many sim-ply left their second choice blank cannot beknown.20 The CEP omitted all these blankvotes in its statement of returns, listing only235.

Calculating the blank vote for the Nord'Est

Ballots cast 43100 Data: Données sur la participation au scrutin, column E

Senators on ballot 2

Resultant senatorial choices 86,200

Votes cast for senators 60,496

Null votes 1,797

Remaining votes left blank* 23,907 Choices less votes-cast less null votes

Ballots cast for no candidate** 235 Data: Données sur la participation au scrutin, column C

Senators on ballot 2

Blank votes (2) 470

Total blank votes 24,377

* = Number of voters who voted "un seul choix."

**"Aucun candidat"

Recommendation: The CEP should state the entire blank vote in the returns.

18

21Statement of Claude Fedner, RAMAK Committee leader, Washington, D.C., June 3, 2009. RAMAK is a network of

community radio stations in Haiti supported by the international organization Internews.

D. Gross mathematical error

On April 27, 2009 the CEP’s Centre de Tabulation issued “Données sur la participationau scrutin (1), ” above. In column E showing number of votes cast, the Centre de Tabulation inadvertently doubled the number of votes cast in seven of nine provinces. The error had theeffect of vastly inflating actual turnout for the entire country. In the last column the error wassilently corrected, indicating that it had been inadvertent. Apparently it was the result of inexpertuse of a spreadsheet program.

Nevertheless, the appearance of mathematical errors in a summary column of the nationalreturns raised the question of what other errors may have crept in that might not be so evident toexternal analysis. Clearly, no professional fact-checking was being applied.

Recommendation: All data and calculations need to be verified by qualified outsiders.

E. Lack of transparency of Tabulation Center

In 2006, when Jacques Bernard was administering the CEP, he opened the TabulationCenter to election observers. During that year, observers of the Haiti Democracy Project twicewent there to carry out investigations. Our probe in December uncovered falsifications of certainprocès-verbaux that had reached the tabulation center.

On April 27, 2009 the Haiti Democracy Project obtained seventy-six original poll-watcher procès-verbaux carbon copies from various Nord-Est BVs. We returned to theTabulation Center to verify their returns. Unexpectedly, the director of the Tabulation Center,Alain Gauthier, barred our two accredited observers, citing legal orders protecting the returns.However, Article 214 of the 2008 electoral law specifies that “Les observateurs nationaux ouinternationaux accrédités peuvent observer le déroulement de l’ensemble des opérationsélectorales sur toute l’étendue du territoire.” The only limitation stated is that their observationnot interfere with electoral operations (Article 216).

As it turned out, the returns in our possession matched those on the CEP website.Nevertheless, observer access to returns received at the tabulation center needs to be restored.

F. Lack of transparency to media

The electoral commission only credentialed a small percentage of Haitian reporters whoapplied and only within the last twenty-four hours, making it difficult for them to reach remotelocations in time to cover the vote.21

19

22New York Times, January 7, 2008.

V. Weak Firewall Between Electoral and Executive Branches

In Haitian electoral history, the problems that play out in fraud, miscounts, or violence onelection day frequently originate with dominant political actors who strive to shape the outcomeof elections or overturn results not to their liking. Overweening presidents have been morecommon than not. They have frequently been the chief perpetrator, l’homme fort whose wordthrills the ranks of the ambitious. This was certainly the case in 2000 when ex-President Aristideengineered, through the staff of the electoral council, the discarding of over a million oppositionvotes so that his candidates could win on the first round. At that time, René Préval was president.The election commissioner fled into exile, the OAS observation mission under Orlando Marvillewas forced to pull out, and the opposition boycotted further elections. (Senator Marville is afounding board member of the Haiti Democracy Project. The project was glad to sponsor theexiled commissioner, Léon Manus, at his first public U.S. appearance.)

When such power plays are in progress, the fraud that election observers might catch onelection day is mere shadow play. As Edward P. Joseph wrote in “Observe Early and Often,” “Itisn’t enough for observers, most of whom arrive shortly before polls open, to watch as electionsare rigged or poorly administered and then cry foul as violence spins out of control.”22

A key variable in Haiti is the degree of independence of the electoral council, formally acoeval branch of government. A council may not start out independent but circumstances maymake it so. Thus, Léon Manus at first defended the miscount in 2000, but eventually rejected itand resisted pressure from both Aristide and Préval. The present electoral commission, too, owedits existence to Préval, and made several decisions that helped him considerably, but whencaught in the crucible of the Milot fraud finally made the favored candidate go to a second round.

A. Membership of commission

According to the constitution, the electoral council is a completely independent andpermanent branch of government. Haiti has yet to form a single council so. Each of the manyprovisional ones since 1987 has been more or less jury-rigged, and each has brought its own setof problems. The commission that held the April 2009 elections was no exception. Its formationin 2007 bore the imprint of President Préval, who had jettisoned the previous commission that for all its faults had taken Haiti through three good elections.

The president of the new commission, Frantz Gérard Verret, is a cousin of a closepresidential adviser, Gabriel Verret. More questionably, the vice-president, Rodol Pierre, is thehead of a political party reputedly close to President Préval, the UCADDE. This is the first timein recent memory that a head of a political party—a quasi ruling party, no less— was put on a

20

23The Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains has also questioned the excessive influence of the executive in

the formation of the commission—“Rapport du RNDDH sur les Elections Sénatoriales Partielles,” June, 2009, pp. 1, 3,17, at http://haitipolicy.org/Rapport.pdf.

24CEP, News Release (by Jacques Bernard), “Une Perspective Electorale Menacée,” at

http://haitipolicy.org/content/3905.htm

25http://haitipolicy.org/content/3899.htm

Haitian electoral council. It was a candidate of this party, the UCADDE, who led the assault onthe election machinery in the Central Plateau on April 19, 2009.

Thus by its very membership, the electoral commission began with a conflict of interestinvolving both its relationships with the executive branch and political parties.23

B. The ouster of Jacques Bernard

It nevertheless appeared that President Préval would allow the commission itsindependence. In December 2007, he invited the administrator of the 2006 elections, Jacques P.Bernard, to resume his duties at the new commission. This was potentially an enormous gain forindependence and proficiency, because Bernard had steered Haiti through three of the bestelections in its history in 2006.

In his meeting with Préval, Bernard set the condition that the regulations of 2005, givinghim power to run the elections, remain in force. Préval seemed to agree. Soon, however, theelectoral commission began giving Bernard problems which he characterized as “a barely-concealed negativism and a desire to block any initiative aimed at speeding up the progresstoward elections.” He found the members of the CEP “innocent of any knowledge of electoraloperations and seemingly bent on ignoring the colossal work already done by forty-threethousand electoral workers.”24 It soon became apparent why. On January 21, 2008 Préval sentdown regulations totally draining Bernard of his power. “Despite my eagerness to contribute, itbecame evident to me today that the constraints imposed by the new internal regulations made itimpossible to guarantee the success of the task ahead,” Bernard wrote in his letter of resignation.A group of members of parliament expressed “serious doubts concerning the capacity of theexisting electoral institution to conduct a credible, honest and transparent process.”25

Not everyone blamed Préval for this outcome. Himmler Rebu, former armyman, author,and leader of a political grouping, said that the election commissioners were right to take overmanagement because it was they who would be held responsible for the outcome. But theprevailing opinion was that given Bernard’s experience and the lack of it on the commission,Bernard’s removal was in effect a decision to delay and de-prioritize elections. Also, givenBernard’s independence, it was a decision to keep elections in the hands of a pliable body. Theuncanny way in which the commissioners anticipated Préval’s move against Bernard supported

21

26Article 112-1. Each House may impose on its members for reprehensible conduct, by a two-thirds (2/3) majority vote,

disciplinary penalties, except for expulsion.Article 113. Any member of the Legislature shall be disqualified as a Deputy or Senator, if, during his term, he hasreceived a final sentence by a court of regular law, which renders him ineligible to serve.

27Jugement, District Court of Fort-Liberté, at http://haitipolicy.org/content/3976.htm. “Les questions relatives à la

nationalité, à la qualité d’un citoyen sont du ressort exclusif des tribunaux de droit commun ; Reconnait en conséquenceque la résolution du 18 mars 2008 prise par le sénat est une fuite en avant pour n’avoir pas la vertu d’attendre unjugement d’un tribunal de droit commun sanctionnant le rapport de la commission sénatoriale d’enquête sur la doublenationalité. Ce qui rend donc cette résolution inopposable à monsieur Roudolph Henry Boulos premier sénateur de laRépublique pour le département du Nord’est.”

28Radio Métropole, “Le CEP ignore une nouvelle décision judiciaire dans le cadre de l'affaire Boulos,” January 22, 2009,

at http://metropolehaiti.com/metropole/archive.php?action=full&keyword=&sid=1&critere=0&id=14664&p=3

this view: clearly, their political antennae were well tuned. That attunement would now carryover into three defining cases the commission was called on to decide.

C. Scheduling an election for a seat already held

As noted above, Sen. Rudolph H. Boulos is a founder of the Haiti Democracy Project. Hehad been elected no less than three times from the Nord’Est Department in 2006, each time withmore votes than the last, and in 2008 he was elected vice-president of the senate where hebecame an opposition spokesman, criticizing Préval for what he termed a belated and inadequategovernmental response to the rise in food prices.

The public contest between the two culminated in a vote by sixteen senators to expelBoulos from the senate on March 18, 2008. Boulos charges that President Préval was behind themove. The issue raised against him was dual citizenship, for allegedly possessing an Americanpassport, but he denied that he had one. In any event, Articles 112 and 113 of the Haitianconstitution prohibit the senate from expelling a member on any grounds unless that member hasbeen convicted in a court of law, which Boulos has not.26

On June 16, 2008 the civil court of Fort-Liberté ruled that citizenship questions relatingto Senator Boulos were the exclusive province of the courts and that the senate had exceeded itsauthority. It could not expel a member who had not been convicted in court, nor had it attainedthe two-thirds majority (twenty) needed for an expulsion vote.27

On January 19, 2009, the appeals court in Port-de-Paix ordered the government andelectoral board not to hold a new election for the seat which remained legally filled by theincumbent, pending the outcome of court appeals. “L'état doit attendre le prononcé de la courd'appel avant une quelconque décision," Judge Wilfrid Brutus ruled.28 In the light of the courtrulings, many senators changed their minds and twelve wrote to the electoral commissioninsisting that it hold the seat open until the question was settled.

22

29Never publicly stated, but frequently expressed in private to the senators involved in the vote against Boulos. One

senator told Boulos that the whole impetus came from Préval, and that if Boulos were ever put in prison he would notemerge alive.

30Radio Métropole, ibid.

After the expulsion vote, Boulos had immediately fled Haiti fearing imminent arrest andmistreatment in jail. He has since publicly denounced on Radio Caraïbes two threatenedassassination plots against him in the Dominican Republic, one in November 2008 and the otherin March 2009. He provided considerable detail on both plots, including their alleged provenancefrom Préval and national-palace personnel. Two Haitian journalists have also reported thesealleged threats.

Despite being in exile, Boulos was making progress in getting his seat back. He had onhis side the original vote of the electors of the Nord’Est, constitutional provisions, and courtrulings. However, he had against him the clear desire of the president of Haiti to be rid of him.29

It was this dynamic that prevailed as the electoral commission now declared the seat open and seta new election to definitively exclude Boulos.

The president of the electoral commission, Frantz Gérard Verret, publicly based the moveon the original senate vote and his view that the electoral body was an independent branch ofgovernment to which court rulings did not apply. Asked by a reporter why he did not wait for anew decision by the senate, he replied that he would not conduct the affairs of government in themedia.30

Recommendation: The election should be annulled and the senator reinstated. Haitiancourts and international human-rights organizations should rigorously investigate theassassination threats against him.

D. Disqualifying a major political party

The Lavalas party split into two wings some four years ago. In 2005 and 2009, both wingsclaimed the right to run candidates in the party’s name. In 2005, the interim government found away to inscribe the party. Its candidates ran nationwide and many were elected. One of them, asenator, joined a Haiti Democracy Project delegation to Washington in May, 2008 where sheserved with distinction.

Préval had been elected in 2006 with considerable support from Lavalas partisans, butthere had since been a falling out. The Fanmi Lavalas—both wings agreeing here—charged thatPréval had betrayed them. Now, the Lavalas partisans said, we will reclaim our base from Prévalin the 2009 elections.

The conflict between the party’s two wings on the eve of elections made it vulnerable tobeing ruled out on a technicality. In both 2005 and 2009, when it presented two candidate slates

23

31Article 94. Pour être recevable, la déclaration de candidature à la Présidence, au Sénat et à la

Députation doit, par ailleurs, être munie des pièces suivantes:f) Un certificat de bonne vie et moeurs délivré par le Juge de Paix de la Commune dans laquelle réside le candidat auquelil sera annexé les pièces suivantes:• Un document, à titre informatif, émanant de la Police Nationale d’Haïti attestant qu’il n’existe, contre lui, aucun avis

de recherche des forces de l’ordre;• Un certificat du greffe du Tribunal de Première Instance du lieu de son domicile attestant qu’il n’existe, contre lui,

aucune poursuite pénale ayant abouti à une peine afflictive ou infamante

32On election day, Volcy’s bodyguards assaulted another candidate in Nippes. —Réseau National de Défense des Droits

Humains, “Rapport du RNDDH sur les Elections Sénatoriales Partielles,” p. 11, at http://haitipolicy.org/Rapport.pdf.

each claiming to represent the party, the electoral commission had grounds to require it to resolvethe issue.

The difference in the two cases was political will and dynamics, not the legal situation. In2005 the interim regime wanted to hold an inclusive election, and as an unelected government,was less inclined to make political decisions. In 2009, Préval, an elected president, had no suchcompunction.

The decision excluded an important electoral bloc. It alarmed the United States and otherforeign embassies, who feared its effect on the legitimacy of the election. Some Lavalasspokespeople declared a boycott and threatened to kill anyone who voted. Given the LavalasParty’s history of political violence, that struck many as no idle threat. Fortunately, wiser headsprevailed and the threat was not carried out.

Recommendation. For the sake of inclusiveness, the formula used to inscribe the Lavalasparty in 2005 should be revived for the next elections.

E. Qualifying suspected criminals with pending cases to run for the senate

Article 94(f) of the election law requires candidates to obtain statements from the localpolice and courts certifying that there are no pending cases against them before a candidate’scredentials can be accepted.31

Somehow, a number of individuals who have pending cases, or are credibly suspected incorruption, drug-dealing, or violence, were able to get around this requirement. Among themwere Willot Joseph, whose depredations in the Central Plateau have been described above;presidential adviser Moïse Jean Charles, a fugitive from justice and a suspect in a murder case;and Assad Volcy, press director for the palace and a suspect in a celebrated kidnapping case32;but this is not an exhaustive listing. The faithful application of Article 94(f) would have barredall these candidacies and more, and probably would have spared Haiti the debacle in the CentralPlateau.

24

33Cyrus Sibert, “L’Institution électorale, pierre angulaire du projet démocratique haïtien,” Réseau Citadelle, December 2,

2008, at http://haitipolicy.org/content/4093.htm.

34Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, “Elections Sénatoriales: Le RNDDH invite le CEP à faire une stricte

application de la loi électorale pour éviter de transformer le Sénat de la République en un repère de bandits,” newsrelease, February 3, 2009

On December 2, 2008 an outspoken journalist in Cap-Haïtien warned, “Across thecountry, bandits are being recruited as candidates, electoral workers, or gang members forviolence on election day.”33

On February 3, 2009 the distinguished Haitian organization Réseau National de Défensedes Droits Humains called on the CEP for “strict application of the electoral law to avoid turningthe Senate of the Republic into a lair of bandits.”34 As Pierre Esperance, executive director of theRNDDH stated on February 6, 2009, Moïse Jean-Charles was the leader of a group of Lavalaspartisans in Cap-Haïtien on April 6, 2003 when it opened fire on a crowd that was protesting thegovernment. One person was killed and two injured, including a government prosecutor. Jean-Charles is also allegedly implicated in the murder of Guitz Adrien Salvant on February 15, 2004,as well as other acts of violence carried out in the Nord Department. Judge Harold Chery issued asummons for Jean-Charles for involvement in political violence in December 2001. Jean-Charlesappeared in court on April 4, 2003. After the court session, Judge Chery issued an arrest order.Jean-Charles remained at large. His murder case of February 15, 2004 has been pending in Cap-Haïtien court for ten months.

Esperance also cited the case of Lt. Emmanuel McGrégoire Chevry, candidate for theCentral Plateau with the Fusion Party, who was discharged from the Haitian army in 1989 foralleged involvement in drug trafficking.

As the Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains has pointed out, there is alsoArticle 211 of the electoral code which bars from candidacy all those involved in electoral fraudor violence.

Recommendation: All candidates enrolled in violation of Article 94(f) should bedisqualified, including but not limited to Jean-Charles, Chevry, and Willot Joseph. Article211 needs to be enforced against all who violated it.

F. Failing to hold mandated local-assembly elections leading to permanent CEP

The electoral law of 2008 mandated the Provisional Electoral Council to hold two sets ofelections: partial senatorial, and local assemblies. These latter would then nominate thepermanent electoral council required by Articles 191–199 of the constitution.

The electoral commission made no move to hold the overdue local-assembly elections.These last had become possible by Haiti’s achievement of local elections at all levels in 2006.

25

The local elections had produced a pluralistic, dispersed corps of mayors and other local officials.The permanent electoral council to arise from this diverse group would probably be difficult forthe executive to control—an outcome very much intended by the 1987 constitution’s framers.

Conclusion

As of June 9, 2009, the second round was set to be held using the stated results of thefirst. What will be Haiti’s assessment of this election? The negative impression which Haitianpublic opinion formed of elections in 1997 and 2000 played out in the politics of following years.The positive impression it had of those of 2006 promoted a degree of stability that still endures.The assessment of this election, when it is finally made, will have a similarly important effect.

The positives. Haiti badly needed this election. It had been due since November 2007.Since May 2008 Haiti has been shorn of twelve senators, leaving eighteen and a precariousquorum. In September 2009 a window of opportunity opens for the senate to entertainamendments to the constitution. It needs at least twenty senators to legally do so. If the fullcomplement fails to form by then, Haiti will have to wait until 2016 before it can try again.While Haiti already has a good constitution, many areas of which it has yet to fulfill, there isalways room for improvement. In the current Haitian political dynamic, however, it is almost asthough the question is between amendment and replacement — replacement by one that wouldenshrine the power of the president and allow consecutive terms. Some Haitian commentatorsfear that Préval might be seeking such a constitution to stay in power beyond his current term,which ends in February, 2011. Considering this possibility, the Haitian analyst Robert Benodinconcluded it was better to have even bad elections for the senate so that it could amend and savethe constitution. In that event, Haiti would have a new constitutional president in 2011.

Another positive is that the electoral commission at least corrected some abuses. Itdeserves credit for canceling the Central Plateau elections, whether on its own account or on theurging of others. It did well in throwing out the Milot returns. A suspected murderer pressed hardto make it on the first round and was temporarily turned away.

The negatives. We have seen that the method of the electoral commission was to acceptreturns as valid until someone challenged them. It did not correct them on its own, even if theywere obviously awry. Except for the few intercepted by candidate challenges, the rest areessentially unverified. There is no way of knowing how many of them were compromised. It isunlikely that the fraud was conveniently confined to the Central Plateau and two locations in theNord, Port-au-Prince and the Artibonite.

Other dubious aspects included the scheduling of an election for a seat still legally heldby a senator whose position had been upheld by the courts. The exclusion of a major party alsoraised questions of legitimacy. Finally, the admission of so many candidates with pendingcriminal cases and/or criminal reputations threatened to make a shambles of the Haitianlegislature.

26

35“Electoral Observation and Democratization in Haiti, in Kevin J. Middlebrook, ed., Electoral Observation andDemocratic Transitions in Latin America (San Diego: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1998.)

As if anticipating all these problems by a sixth sense, the population, especially in thecities, decided to sit this one out. Coupled with the fraud and the arbitrary inclusions andexclusions, the apathy, if not antipathy, of the electorate recalled earlier troubled elections.

The imperative for an election—any election—was there, but could it dispel the doubtsthat now overhung the election that actually took place? In the end, the election of April 19, 2009may take its place alongside the many other Haitian dilemmas which one can turn over endlesslybut never resolve.

A. Recommendation for electoral observation

In 2006 the U.S. government funded international observation of the elections. For the2009 elections, it decided that delegations from the U.S. embassy would suffice. However,elections expert Prof. Henry F. Carey has described the problem with such an approach.(Professor Carey is a founding board member of the Haiti Democracy Project.) “In 1995 and1997, delegations from the U.S. embassy were inclined to defend the elections in light of theUnited States’ huge financial and political investment in the undertaking.”35

In its correction of the Milot returns, the electoral commission specifically cited thereports of national and international observers. The existence of these reports helped thecommission withstand the considerable political pressure for falsification. The damage to U.S.policy objectives caused by bad elections in Haiti is incalculably higher than any cost of electoralobservation. The power of international observation to correct and validate is an asset to U.S.policy.

Observer Reports

Below, the Haiti Democracy Project presents aggregated observer responses to itsquestionnaires on the voting process and the count in individual BVs. The lack of resourceslimited our numbers on election day to eleven. In that limited sample, we were glad to find fewirregularities. But this was a tougher election to cover than those of 2006 because of the free fieldgiven to falsifiers, whom our few observers failed to detect. In no way do we presume to extendthe findings to the rest of the country.

A. The Haiti Democracy Project’s observer team

All but two had previous experience in observing Haitian elections: eight with ourmissions in 2006, and two with missions of the International Foundation for Election Systems.

27

The head of our mission in Port-au-Prince was Prof. Edward P. Joseph of Johns HopkinsUniversity, who had previously headed one of the IFES missions and brings deep experience inelectoral oversight in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and other challenging locales. ProfessorJoseph’s piece in the New York Times “Observe Early and Often” reviewed the the Kenyanelections and recommended observer oversight through the crucial preparatory phase. Hisrecommendation holds equally true for Haitian elections.

The head of our mission in the north of Haiti was James R. Morrell, director of the HaitiDemocracy Project and administrator of three observer missions in 2006 which altogetherbrought seventy-two accredited international observers to Haiti. The last mission, in December2006, was the largest international mission for that round. Morrell received his Ph.D. fromHarvard University and has taught at George Washington University and the Vermont statecollege system.

On April 19, five deployed in Port-au-Prince, two in Cap-Haitien and four in the Nord-Est Department. The twelfth member joined the team after the elections for post-electoral issues.

On April 25, the bulk of our observation and closing reports were placed on the HaitiDemocracy Project website.

B. The technical process on election day (From the questionnaire, “Observation of the VotingProcess”)

1. Internal Proficiency

a. Voter Screening

28

Nam es we re checked against list BVs surveyed %

14 14 100

Voters requ ired to have valid card

14 14 100

Voters required to have a card from that BV

14 14 100

Voters had to be registered

14 14 100

No properly-registered voters were prevented

from voting

14 14 100

The BV president did not confiscate the cards of

any voters

14 14 100

b. Material and Personnel Readiness

1. SITE OF THE BV1.1 The BV was at its original location. If NO, specify:

2. OPENING OF THE BV2.1 According to the BV members, what time did the BV open? ______ h: _____min.If other than 6 a.m., comments

3. PRESENCE OF BV MEMBERS3.1 All three BV members were present. If NO, comments3.2 Unauthorized people were inside the BV. If YES, who were they?

29

Read iness

BV was at original location BV’s surveyed %

13 14 93

Opened on time

13 14 93

All BV members present

14 14 100

No un au thor ized people

inside

12 14 86

Com ple te mater ials

14 14 100

Total 94

c. Voter access

No problems accessing BV BV’s surveyed Percentage

13 14 93

30

d. Integrity of the Voting Process

8. THE VOTE

BV’s surveyed %

14 14 100

Ballot boxes were sealed

14 14 100

President’s instructions we re

impartial

14 14 100

No violat ions of secrecy observed

14 14 100

31

2. Resistance to External Threats to the Voting ProcessA number of questions in “Observation of the Voting Process” gauge the electoral

apparatus’s readiness against these threats and the degree of disruption reported and observed.

a. Security ReadinessQuestion 6 queried the security measures observed. The presence of MINUSTAH,

Haitian National Police (PNH) and administrative security agents was observed at each votingcenter:

MINUSTAH present BV’ssurveyed

%

14 14 100

PNH present

14 14 100

Security augmentees

14 14 100

b. Security Problems

Question 6.3 evaluated for security problems affecting the voting. This is essentially agauge of the electoral apparatus’s ability to withstand external challenges. As the answers to theprevious question indicated, there was a large and sufficient security presence, including largecoverage by MINUSTAH. In our observation of the April 19 elections, the only disruption wasencountered at the new voting center in Cité Soleil, where, in the observers’ words, “Chimèresand troublemakers sought to vote many times and tried to tell other people how to vote. Theyharassed voters. The police had to intervene.” However, our observers considered that the votewas not threatened and reported no security problem.

Security problems

BV’ssurveyed

%

No security problems 14 14 100

Security problemsreported

0 14 0

Security problemsobserved

0 14 0

32

c. Party Poll Watchers’ Deportment

The presence of party poll watchers is an indispensable part of the checks and balances ofthe voting process. All poll watchers observed during this mission behaved properly. The paucityof voters meant that the poll watchers had plenty of room and never crowded the voters, asobserved sometimes in the 2006 election.

Question 8.4 tested for the impact of the party poll watchers on the integrity of theprocess within the BV. Question 9.2 “Violations of the secrecy of the vote were observed (i.e., byparty representatives, BV members, etc.)” has already been covered.

Poll watchers didn’t try toinstruct voters

BV’s surveyed %

14 14 100

d. Intimidation

Question 10 tested for the quality of the voting environment with questions aboutintimidation, illegal political activities, and the presence of people trying to interrupt the polling.

33

Acts of intimidation

BV’s surveyed %

None 14 14 100

Reported 0 14 0

Observed 0 14 0

Illegal Political Activities

BV’s surveyed %

None 13 14 93

Reported 0 14 0

Observed 1 14 7

34

Attempts to Interrupt the Polling

BV’s surveyed %

None 13 14 93

Reported 0 14 0

Observed 1 14 7

3. General Evaluation

General Evaluation

BV’s observed %

No irregularities 13 14 93

Minor 0 14 0

Many minor 1 14 7

Major reported 0 14 0

Major observed 0 14 0

35

4. Closing

At least as critical as anything observed during the day is the closing and count. It is herethat major instances of fraud in the polling places on April 19, 2009 may have taken place . Andit is here, unfortunately, that the vigilance of both observers and poll watchers tends to flag, asboth have spent a very long day observing since the opening at 6:00 a.m.

The closing precedes the count. Although 5:00 p.m. is written on the forms, the pollsclosed at 4:00 p.m.

Closing

BV’ssurveyed

%

On time 11 11 100

Early 0 11 0

All waiting votersvoted

11 11 100

Official recordcompleted

11 11 100

No problemsobserved

11 11 100

36

5. Count

The results form reflected different levels of turnout between Port-au-Prince andprovincial voters.

Observed Turnout

Ouest Department Nord-Est Department

Registered voters Voters Registered voters Voters

1873 83 2527 560

Observed Turnout, Ouest Department Observed Turnout, Nord-Est Dept.

37

Counting procedure

BV’s surveyed %

Count began immediately after closing 11 11 100

Poll-watchers were present 11 11 100

Count went on uninterrupted 11 11 100

BV personnel, poll-watchers, observers stayed in theroom for the count

10 11 91

The unused ballots were counted, bagged and sealed 11 11 100

The number of unused ballots was noted on theprocès verbal and the sack

11 11 100

38

Counting procedure, continued

BV’ssurveyed

%

Ballots are counted 7 7 100

Number of ballots cast matchesnumber of voters

7 7 100

Ballots received = used and unusedballots

7 7 100

Noted in procès-verbal 7 7 100

Counted ballots in clear voice inview of all present

7 7 100

Ballots cast added to the nullballots

7 7 100

Ballots cast and null ballots =ballots received

7 7 100

Ballots cast for each candidatenoted in procès-verbal

7 7 100

39

Bazelais Dely Edward Joseph

Juan Nova Delbie Noel Elda Pinchinat

Hierro

Rafael Luna Jam es

Morre ll

Jacqueline Peterson

Guzma n Lap lante

6. Deployment

Ob serv ation of the vote

Cité Soleil: Foyer culturel St-Vincent de Paul

Cité So leil: Cen tre Pilote

Turgeau: Lycée Marie Jeanne

Turgeau: Office de pré-désastre (OPDES)

Closing and count

Turgeau : Office de p ré-désastre (O PDES), BV-5

BV-1 BV-2 BV-3

Ob serv ation of the vote

Lycée N at ionale de Pé tion V ille

Kenskoff: College Mission Baptiste de Fermathe

Ecole Nationale de Ta barre

Closing and count

Kenskoff: College Mission Baptiste de Fermathe

Ecole Nationale de Tabarre, BV-24

BV-2

Ob serv ation of the vote

Lycée nationa le du Terrier Rouge , BV-6

BV-5

Fort-Liberté: Ecole nationale de Bayaha

BV-1

Fort-Liberté : Ecole nationale S aint-Joseph, BV -7

BV-5 BV-1

Closing and count

Ouanaminthe: Ecole nationale mixte, BV-11

BV-12 BV-13

BV-14 BV-15

BV-16 BV-17

40

Claudio Rev. Ga rry

San chez Théodate

Edward Leand ro James Delb ie

Joseph Medeot Morrell Noel

Ob serv ation of the vote

Cap-Haït ien: Lycée Philippe Guerrier

BVs 1–28

Post-Ele ctora l Visits

Tabulation Center

Prov isiona l Ele ctoral C ounc il

Fondation Conna issance

Group of 184

U.N. M ission for Stab ilization of Ha iti

Coming from

1. Ba ze lais Dely Haitian Santo Domingo

2. Jacqueline Carmen de M ello Guzman Dominican San tiago , Dom inican Re public

3. Juan M anue l Nova Hierrro Dominican Dom inican consulate, Port-au-Prince

4. Edward P. Joseph U.S. Washington, D.C.

5. Pete rson La plante Haitian Brockton, M ass.

6. Rafael Luna Dominican San tiago , Dom inican Re public

7. Leandro Medeot Italian Ita ly

8. James Morre ll U.S. Washington, D.C.

9. Delbie Noel U.S. Atlanta

10. Elda Pinchinat U.S. Jersey City, N.J.

11. Claudio de Jesus Sanchez Medrano Dominican San tiago , Dom inican Re public

12. Rev. Garry Théodate U.S. Brockton, M ass.