Tribunal orders recount in close Puebla governor election

Too many inconsistencies in vote that gave PAN candidate a 4% lead over Morena

Published on Thursday, September 20, 2018

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The federal electoral tribunal has ordered a complete recount of votes cast in the July 1 election for governor of Puebla due to irregularities detected in the original count.

Judges of the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (TEPJF) reached the decision unanimously, ordering that a public recount take place on September 24.

Martha Erika Alonso, candidate for the National Action Party (PAN) and wife of former Puebla governor Rafael Moreno Valle, won the election with 38% of the vote, four percentage points or 122,000 votes ahead of Morena party candidate Miguel Barbosa Huerta.

But Morena, led by president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, accused the PAN of electoral fraud by manipulating ballots in favor of Alonso and challenged the result, first with the Puebla Electoral Tribunal (TEEP), which ruled against a recount.

The TEEP said Morena had not proven that the electoral process had been compromised.

However, the federal electoral tribunal said a recount of votes cast in all 26 electoral districts was warranted due to a series of inconsistencies that raised questions about the results.

They included a discrepancy between the number of ballot boxes set up and those from which votes were counted in 13 districts and results not being correctly specified in nine others.

“These inconsistencies and deficiencies with respect to the records and calculations of the 26 electoral districts don’t create sufficient confidence in the results obtained in the voting,” said Janine Otálora Malassis, president of the TEPJF.

Alonso said in a Twitter post that she was pleased with the electoral tribunal’s decision, writing “I’m convinced that with this ruling we will have full and absolute certainty of the victory we obtained for the governorship of Puebla.”

Barbosa also applauded the decision, describing it as “historic” on his own Twitter account and stating that it’s the “result of the challenge filed by Morena [and] the citizens’ demand for a clean election.”

Source: El Financiero (sp)

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