Over the years, after every close US election, everyone seems to find the Electoral College an abomination. I mean, why shouldn't we just vote for President and be done with all that? Electors may have been fine for the horse-and-buggy age, but this is Modern America, blah blah blah.
I've posted before just why the Electoral College is a good thing and, if the early reports out of Mexico are accurate, their election crisis is going to prove out several of them:
In at least one state, the dominant party is going to stuff the ballot box. In the US, this wouldn't help as they'd already have all the electoral votes they were going to get. In Mexico, they go straight to the bottom line and the temptation to cheat is enormous. Both sides will do this.
If the election is really close, where do you do the recount? Well, everywhere of course, and some of those places will have recount boards that would make Mayor Daley die of envy. Rather than settling anything, they'll just add to the crisis. This happened in Florida, too, but at least it only happened in Florida.
In the US, we have a tradition of fairly clean elections. Some tire slashing, some vote buying, some crooked precincts, but no one gets shot at, no one is threatened, and no one sane thinks the polls are generally rigged. It's not like that in Mexico, as they are just coming out of a 70-year run by a truly crooked regime -- one so unpopular they're a distant third and probably won't exist as a party next time around. Mexicans have no trust going in, and they'll have far less coming out. Mexico needs leadership and change, and all they're going to get is more trouble. Damn shame.
UPDATE: Uh-huh. Recount demanded.