U.S. Encouraged by ___ Vote: Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite___

Fill in the blanks:
U.S. Encouraged by ___ Vote: Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite____ Terror
by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times
March 2005

WASHINGTON-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in ____'s presidential election despite a ____ terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from ____, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the ____.

The size of the popular vote and the inability of the ____ to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.

Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the White House would comment on the balloting or the victory of the military candidates, ____, who was running for president, and ____, the candidate for vice president.

A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President ____'s policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in ____. The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began in January ____, to which President ____ gave his personal commitment when he met ____ and ____,the chief of state... in February.

The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the ____ Government, which has been founded only on coups and power plays since November, 1963, when ____ was overthrown by a military junta. ...

Significance Not Diminished
The fact that the backing of the electorate has gone to ____ does not, in the Administration's view, diminish the significance of the constitutional step that has been taken.

The hope here is that the new government will be able to maneuver with a confidence and legitimacy long lacking in ____ politics. That hope could have been dashed either by a small turnout, indicating widespread scorn or a lack of interest in constitutional development, or by the ____'s disruption of the balloting.

American officials had hoped for an 80 per cent turnout. That was the figure in the election in September for the Constituent Assembly. Seventy-eight per cent of the registered voters went to the polls in elections for local officials last spring.

Before the results of the presidential election started to come in, the American officials warned that the turnout might be less than 80 per cent because the polling place would be open for two or three hours less than in the election a year ago. The turnout of 83 per cent was a welcome surprise. The turnout in the 1964 United States Presidential election was 62 percent. ...

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The blanks in the original New York Times article were filled with:

Vietnam
Vietcong
South Vietnam's
Vietcong
Saigon
Vietcong
Vietcong
Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu
Premier Nguyen Cao Ky,
Johnson
South Vietnam
1966
Johnson
Premier Ky
General Thieu
Saigon
President Ngo Dinh Diem
the generals who have been ruling South Vietnam for the last two years
South Vietnamese
Vietcong

Original title: "U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote: Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror" by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times, September 4, 1967, p. 2.