Haiti: Who's Cooking Salmon?

The latest reports on the Haitian election do not sound good. The U.N. apparently fired on a crowd of Preval supporters, killing at least one.

After initial reports of exit polls and early counts made it sound like Preval was victorious by more than the "50% plus one" necessary to avoid a runoff, his percentage has gradually declined with the latest report having Preval with 48.7% of the vote --- an amazingly fortuitous number for those trying to undercut Preval.

Given the pre-election and election day shenanigans that may have disenfranchised Preval voters disproportinately, the latest reports are bringing rising claims of fraud. There are claims of tally sheets disappearing and, in fact, tally sheets with vote tabulations have been found dumped in the garbage. Disputes have erupted on the election council with claims that the head of the council was acting unilaterally and without participation of other council members. The UN is also reporting that "Doors were removed from the tabulation center to prevent electoral council lawyers huddling in private."

Approximately 6% of the ballots cast have been declared invalid. More amazing is that another 4% of the ballots have been counted as containing no vote. Are we really to believe that 1 in 20 voters made the effort to get to the poll and then did not vote on this race?

Who's cooking salmon?