June 1 is remembered as the date of Mexico’s first-ever judicial elections, but in a number of states they were combined with voting for local government posts as well. In one of those states — Veracruz — allegations of irregularities have led to an order for a recount, starting this week.
According to the Local Public Electoral Body of the State of Veracruz (OPLE) the official vote count that began on Monday revealed inconsistencies with the number of votes counted in the authorized municipal councils. Furthermore, intermittent periods when the server was unavailable forced many staff members to resubmit information, ultimately resulting in duplicates. The system barely functioned properly for an hour.
“In order to provide certainty and transparency to the results,” the OPLE said in a statement on Tuesday, the vote count will be restarted “no later than June 13.”
OPLE head Marisol Delgadillo said the problems have not affected the validity of the ballots, which will now be processed manually under the “vote by vote, polling station by polling station” system. There are 27 authorized municipal councils and more than 3,000 accredited observers who will be able to monitor the counting process.
Issues have also been reported in the mayoral elections. The national leader of the Movimiento Ciudadano party, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, who pulled off a major upset with a victory in 40 municipal seats, has reported irregularities in the vote count in Poza Rica and Papantla.
Some judicial candidates, such as Rosalba Hernández, who was leading the race to preside over the state’s Superior Court of Justice when the system collapsed, have expressed distrust over the possibility that these failures in the vote-count could ultimately manipulate or distort results.
Beyond the irregularities, the election in Veracruz has been troubled from the start. The lead-up to voting day was marked by an escalation of violence.
According to data from the Votar Entre Balas (Voting Between Bullets) observatory, Veracruz recorded 32 violent incidents during the electoral process, 17 of which were directed against pre-candidates or candidates, representing 53.1% of the total.
The violent events included the murder of Morena and Green Party mayoral candidate Yesenia Lara Gutiérrez and three of her supporters during a campaign event in Texistepec, a town and municipality in the south of Veracruz. Twelve days earlier, Germán Anuar Valencia, Morena’s mayoral candidate in the northern Veracruz municipality of Coxquihui, was shot dead.
With reports from El País and El Economista
