Mexico 2006

[ag]

IFE chaiman Ugalde has said that his job is finished. If anybody wants anything else to be done about the results, they are welcome to go to the courts (TRIFE - Federal Electoral Tribunal).

[© tweed]

What exactly would AMLO's lawsuit be based upon?

[Frodo]

Calderón Wins Narrow Victory in Mexico Election

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: July 6, 2006

MEXICO CITY, July 6 — An official tally of votes today showed that the conservative candidate, Felipe Calderón, had won a narrow victory of less than 200,000 votes in Mexico's presidential election. But his leftist opponent said he would demand a recount in court, and called for his supporters to demonstrate on Saturday.

"We cannot accept these results," said the leftist candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City who has championed the cause of Mexico's impoverished millions. "There are many irregularities," he said, adding: "We are going to ask for clarity. We are going to ask for a vote count, polling place by polling place."

His decision not to concede defeat was a sign that Mexico is still far from having a new President. It also meant that the next move belongs to a special tribunal set up to handle electoral disputes, a court that has never before been ask to make such a momentous ruling.

After 24 hours of recounting tally sheets from 130,000 polling places, electoral officials said this morning that Mr. Calderón had 35.8 percent of the vote and Mr. López Obrador 35.3 percent, with 99.6 percent of the vote counted. A third major candidate, Roberto Madrazo, was far behind with 22.3 percent.

Mr. Calderón said in the pre-dawn hours this morning that he would fight tooth and nail to keep his victory, however narrow. He and his partisans in the National Action Party have accused Mr. López Obrador of seeking to annul what they consider a legitimate victory by mounting a court challenge.

"We are going to defend the votes, and I ask you all to be alert, because we are going to call on all of you to make sure these votes are not canceled, that they are not thrown the trash, and that no one tries to negate for caprice or for ambition what 41 million Mexicans have decided," Mr. Calderón said.

Mr. López Obrador's decision to hold a rally on Saturday also suggested that he would use street demonstrations to put public pressure on the court to grant his request for a full recount. He has a history of using marches to protest what he considered fraudulent elections that did not go his way.

The Federal Electoral Insitute is expected to produce a final vote count later today. It will then submit the figures to the Electoral Tribunal for approval on Sunday, usually a pro-forma process. Mr. López Obrador then will have four days in which to present his case for a recount.

[ag]

What exactly would AMLO's lawsuit be based upon?

Well, you always can find some places where you might have reasonable suspicion of fraud or error and try to get a particular box opened and recounted. What he is going to try to do is to file so many of such claims, that (he hopes) the court would be forced to order a general vote-by-vote recount of all 42 mln. votes. Such a recount is his only hope now, since a) it is very unlikely that any general fraud claim can be proven (Mexican electoral system is extremely robust in preventing such fraud) and b) recounts only in some areas, as has been done until now, have no chance of overturning an over 200 thousand vote majority.

So, his hope is to force a full recount and hope that either enough errors will be found to overturn the majority (frankly, I think this is very unlikely; though he might believe that his opponents systematically were defrauding him in actual precinct count, this is something I find very hard to believe, given the safeguards in the system) or that his people could somehow play with such a re-count (I don't think he really intends that to happen, nor am I sure it is possible, but I am sure a lot of his supporters salivate at the chance).

[ag]

The final 100% count was finished about an hour ago. It is unchanged from the previous one I've posted:

Caldero 35.88%
Lopez Obrador 35.31%

[ag]

The official complete IFE results (I guess, the difference is they added the 32 thousand + ballots mailed from abroad):

Calderon 15,000,284 votes 35.89%
Lopez Obrador 14,756,350 votes, 35.51%

The gap is 0.58% or 243,934 votes

The implied turnout is just under 41.8 mln. voters

[NewFederalist]

Do you have the complete returns including the PRI candidate and others?

[ag]

Do you have the complete returns including the PRI candidate and others?

Working on it. I don't have a subscription to Reforma and am too cheap to pay for it, so I only look at the front page. And El Universal doesn't seem to have published these.

[NewFederalist]

Do you have the complete returns including the PRI candidate and others?

Working on it. I don't have a subscription to Reforma and am too cheap to pay for it, so I only look at the front page. And El Universal doesn't seem to have published these.

Thanks! (or perhaps "gracias" would be in order!)

[ag]

Here it is.

Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (PAN) 15,000,284 votes, 35.89%
Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Coalition for the Good of All: PRD+PT+Convergencia) 14,756,350 votes, 35.31%
Roberto Madrazo Pintado (Alliance for Mexico: PRI+PVEM), 9,301,441 votes, 22.26%
Patricia Mercado Castro (Alternativa) 1,128,850 votes, 2.70%
Roberto Campa Cifrían (Panal) 401,804 votes, 0.96%

This leaves out the write-ins and the invalid votes, but otherwise, that's it on the presidential count

[agcatter]

Nice work, ag.

[NewFederalist]

Thanks again! Great job on keeping us all informed on the campaign and the outcome. You are a real credit to the Forum!

[ag]

Thanks!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There have been reports of ballots being found in the trash in heavily PRD areas.

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/360330.html
http://narconews.com/Issue42/article1962.html

[bullmoose88]

There have been reports of ballots being found in the trash in heavily PRD areas.

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/360330.html
http://narconews.com/Issue42/article1962.html

A quarter million of them?

[ag]

There have been reports of ballots being found in the trash in heavily PRD areas.

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/360330.html
http://narconews.com/Issue42/article1962.html

Except this is not a "heavily PRD area", but rather a "marginal PRD area" (of the two Xalapa districts, Lopez Obrador had a clear victory only in one: 41% to 31%, the other going for him 36% to 31%; in Congress, one of these districts actually seems to be going to PAN). A lot of the neighboring districts gave similar margins to Calderon, and the entire state of Veracruz went for Lopez by about 1%. Calling this a "heavily PRD area" is a big exaggeration.

You should realize, the count - by deliberate design - was an extremelly local affair, and there was little non-locals could do to affect the reports and/or counts. Consequently, a chicanery in an "extremely PRD" area is much more likely done by PRD people, and the same in an "extremely PAN" area could, in most cases, only have been done by Panistas. The ballot box officials are randomly drafted jury-duty style from the local community, and they are the one's who  do the original count and filing the protocols. If they decide to "through out" or "not count" ballots at that stage (very hard to do in most cases, given the presence of numerous observers on the election night), they wouldn't be doing it with the ballots of the majority party in the area. If chicanery happens at any later stage, it would not be recorded in the initial protocol, and, assuming that protocol was filed correctly and no recount was ordered, would not affect the final result. On the other hand, a "full recount" would, obviously, count the ballots in a tampered with box and reward such tampering.

Thus, there are reports of irregularities on both sides, and, in fact, as I've explained, many of these "PRD-dominated areas finds" are, if anything, indications of chicanery by PRD people (remember my previous post from the same source about a discarded precinct protocol from an extremely heavily PRD-dominated area, which had a somewhat smaller-sized Lopez victory - by about 10% - on it than the one actually entered into the system). Likewise, the already extremely high-turnout state of Tabasco (68% in the preliminary count, 10% above national, and only similar to that of Mexico CIty) has been "finding" extra ballots all day yesterday. Now, Calderon got 3.6% there, and he himself was assaulted the only time he tried to campaign there, there is no real PAN organization there, and no chance that PAN could have perpertrated anything there. There aren't even  enough panistas there to observe what PRD people might be doing - precisely the reason why any further count in places like that is almost an invitation to the majority party in the area - PRD in this case - to cheat.

To sum up, no doubt there was local chicanery by both sides - whoever was in power.   But, most definitely, there was no general nationwide misconduct: there is simply no mechanism that has been suggested that could possibly thwart the deliberate design protections against it.  Doing a generalized recount would allow both sides to do it again - inevitably, if it is to be done in reasonable time, it would have to rely on a large number of locally drafted counters, and, given the regional polarization, these will be locally partisan and extremely hard to control.  If anything, the result of such a recount is likely to be further away from what happened on the election night, and the large number of detected instances of cheating, when perpetrators actually get caught, will only further erode whatever popular confidence in the process there is.

[ag]

For those who suggest there might have been large-scale cheating, here is the outline of the voting and counting procedure.

1. The IFE (Electoral Commission) and all district commissions have representatives from each registered party present at all times.

2. Precinct commissions are randomly drafted jury-duty style from local population. Parties send observers  to each precinct for the entire voting day.

3. Voters have a standard-issue voter photo-ID, similar to US driver's license. This is the only ID that allows them to vote.

4. When they show up at the precinct, the picture on the license is compared with the identical picture in the printed voter register held in the polling place. When the ballot is issued, his entry in the register is stamped. In special precincts for out-of-town voters additional ID checks, I believe are done, but since these, so far, haven't become an issue, I am not really aware of details.

5. Voting is by  putting a cross next to a party logo and candidate name on the ballot. The ballot design is very clear, the party logos and candidate names are in large "windows" that are physically rather far apart from each other, making it hard to accidentally mark two.  There is a separate space for write-ins.

5. After the person votes, his ID is marked with a small impression on the plastic and his thumb is also marked with indelible ink (several days later I still have a trace).

6. When the voting is over, the precinct commission, in the presence of the party representatives does the vote count, records the results in a protocol, seals a copy of the protocol inside the box and gives copies to all party representatives. Of course, given the limited numeracy of most Mexicans, many errors  might happen on this stage, but since there are many people counting simultaneously, it is reasonable to belief that these are small and unsystematic.

7. To ensure transparency and detecting trends (in case of clear result), the local commission's copy of the protocol is faxed to the preliminary count center and posted on the web (the data is instatnly provided to about two dosen different organizations, such as universities, TV stations, and newspapers, who all post it on their webpages, to guarantee against both connection problems and tampering with a single site).  That count, however, is only done for transparency sake and has no legal validity. A minor goof occured here. Back on Feb. 10, in a decision agreed by all party representatives, it was decided that if protocols were filed with errors, they would not be counted except later, in the presence of representatives of all parties.  Stupidly, these protocols were recorded on the web as "counted" once they arrived, even though their content was not added. After Lopez made stink about "3 mln. missing votes", these 2.586 mln. votes were rapidly tallied and results presented.

8. Another rapid count is done on election night by IFE-hired researchers, who do a count of 7 thousand randomly chosen precincts and attempt to establish trends. 5 independent research teams all concluded this time that Calderon had an advantage, but statistically insignifficant one (within 0.6% MOE - isn't this incredible! - of the most precise estimate).

8. The official summation starts on Wednesday, when all ballot boxes are delivered into the 300 district headquarters accross the country (by then, of course, the parties have done their own sums from their own copies of the protocols). By law, when the box is brought in to the hearing, the chairman produces the commission copy of the protocol and compares it with the sealed copy of the protocol in the box. Party representatives also compare both copies with those they have. If the protocol has errors, if there are differences between the copies or if there are any visible corrections made, the box is opened and the vote-by-vote recount is conducted, its results superseding the protocol. If no such problems exist, the protocol numbers are simply added up and transmitted to IFE.

During this last stage of the process, PRD representatives in many northern districts insisted on opening EVERY box. Since doing this without a cause would expressly violate the law, they had to come up with a cause on each and every one of these (notably, they didn't do this in their strongholds). Each time a small hearing had to be held, trying to determine if there was any reasonable cause to open, taking substantial time. Furthermore, even minor problems in the protocols would result in opening of the boxes - in some northern districts around 10% of the boxes were recounted. This accounted for late reporting by Calderonista districts, which, for much of the day made it seem that Lopez was ahead.  The largest, in absolute terms, delay, as it turned out, was in the most pro-Calderon state of Guanajuato - after midnight on Wednesday, almost all remaining precincts were in areas dominated by Calderon with over 2:1 margin.

9. IFE counts the ballots sent from abroad (about 32 thousand this time, which Calderon won with 57%) and adds them up to the final tally, which is then proclaimed. Until that moment (around 4 PM yesterday) no statements about trends  or victors are official.

10. On Sunday, once the congress tallies are done in a similar fashion, all the results are transmitted to the special electoral court TEPJF (Tribunal Electoral de Poder Judicial de Federacion, also known as TRIFE - Tribunal Federal Electoral). At that point, parties have 4 days to file suits, which have to be fully resolved (appeals included) by September 6, in time for the opening of the new Congress. In principle, courts can order recounts of certain precincts - though, of course, they can just list them all, but a reason is needed; annulment of votes from certain precincts or even districts, and, in extreme cases, a new election (since they can't order partial repolling, but only the general re-run, these would have to be extreme indeed; they've done it at a state level, though).

11. The new presidential term starts on December 1.

[ag]

The seat distribution in the Congress, bar court-ordered recounts, etc., seems to be:

House

PAN 206 seats
PRD+PT+Convergencia 160 seats
PRI + PVEM 121 seats
Panal 9 seats
Alternativa 4 seats

Senate

PAN 52 seats
PRI+PVEM 39 seats
PRD+PT+Convergencia 36 seats
Panal 1 seat

As in the presidential race, the final count had the primary difference from the preliminary in giving somewhat more votes to PRI (in the presidential race, BOTH Calderon and Lopez actually had lesser share of votes in the final count than in the preliminary).

[Sarnstrom]

Here's what democracy looks like:
http://elecciones.jornada.com.mx/el-zocalo-abarrotado-desde-antes-de-iniciar-la-asamblea-informativa/image/image_view_fullscreen

In all, more than 100,000 people showed up to the rally today.

[Jake]

No, that's called stealing an election.

[Sam Spade]

No, that's called stealing an election.

Well, I would say "attempting to steal an election", but your sentiment is close enough.

[Jake]

We'll see how successful it is.

[WMS]

The PRD is reminding me rather unpleasantly of the NM Democrats at the moment...

[KillerPollo]

Like Al Gore, Lopez Obrador is demanding te votes be reviewed and sh**t... He has turned to the electoral tribunal and formed a demonstration with some of his followers at the Zocalo in Mexico City.

Obrador is surely an asshole who does not know how to lose.

[ag]

While the electoral outcome is being settled, I've sorted the data by district. Below are the 10 best and 10 worst (by % of the vote) districts for each of the major party candidates. First goes the state, then the district (by number and name - the municipality where the headquarters of the district are; big municipalities have multiple districts), then % vote shares of Calderon, Lopez and Madrazo (in this order).

Calderon's top 10:

10. Guanajuato   8. Salamanca   60,59   15,23   17,12
9. San Luis Potosi   5. San Luis Potosi   61,16   19,43   13,08
8. Guanajuato   9. Irapuato   61,30   13,48   19,08
7. Sonora   5. Hermosillo   61,61   16,87   16,17
6. Jalisco         3. Tepatitlan de Morelos   62,47   7,41   23,99
5. Sonora   3. Hermosillo   62,81   16,75   14,84
4. Guanajuato   12. Celaya   65,29   14,01   14,28
3. Guanajuato   6. Leon   65,89   9,98   18,46
2. Guanajuato   3. Leon   66,36   8,99   18,69
1. Guanajuato   5. Leon   69,93   8,54   16,00