Mexican Tribunal Rules Against Lopez Obrador's Request for a Complete Recount (Translation)

eluniversal.com.mx ^ | August 5, 2006 | Arturo Zárate & Jorge Herrera ( translated by self )

[StJacques]

TEPJF rules against vote by vote recount

The Electoral Tribunal presented the legal-electoral obstacles that the For the Good of All coalition¹ did not surpass to attempt a precinct by precinct, vote by vote recount.

The Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Power of the Federation (TEPJF) rejected this morning the aspiration of the For the Good of All coalition that they carry out a recount of all the votes of all the precincts set up for the presidential election of this past July 2.

To the hope of leaving it to judge this aspect of the vote, the Secretary of Study and Counts, Flavio Galvan, presented the legal-electoral obstacles the coalition did not overcome to attempt the precinct by precinct, vote by vote recount:

1. It did not challenge, as the law requires, the [counts within the] 300 electoral districts in which the country was divided for the July 2 election, it only did so in 230, by which it left the rest excluded.

2. The accumulation of all the challenges will not proceed, as the coalition solicits, because no support for it exists in [legal] doctrine and jurisprudence.

3. It did not provide evidence of the alleged irregularities, which would make an intervention by federal government officials improper.

In this section [the Tribunal] determined that some of the serious irregularities indicated by the actor or plaintiff, which is to say the For the Good of All coalition, correspond to the pre-campaign or campaign phase, without reaching or showing an impact in the process of the scrutiny and counting [of votes]. They thus related the apparent defamatory campaigns against the flag-bearer of the coalition, coming from government, religious, or foreign business sectors.

4. Neither did the coalition properly justify its claim in the sense of which the number of null votes were atypical, even with relation to the votes obtained by non-registered candidates.

5. With respect to the claim of an interference of the New Alliance party in favor of the PAN candidate² in various electoral precincts, the coalition did not specify those precincts, which they could have given, that this situation existed.

6. In the same manner, the coalition did not explain in its demand, the supposed partiality of the authorities of the IFE³ to the attention and solution of complaints related to [political] parties and coaltions.

7. The Tribunal also rejected the complaint in which [the coalition] alleged a supposed negligence on the part of the Fepade.⁴

8. Moreover, it rejected the pretention that the magistrates take into account the experience of the recounting of votes in nations such as Costa Rica and Italy, because they know not to sustain these precedents from other countries in favor of the complainant.

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Translator's Notes:

¹The "For the Good of All" coalition refers to the union of Lopez Obrador's PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) Party, the Labor Party, and the Convergence for Democracy Party behind his presidential campaign.

²Felipe Calderon, the PAN presidential candidate and virtual winner of the July 2 presidential election.

³The Federal Electoral Institute, which oversees Mexican elections and is charged with counting the votes.

⁴Acronym for the Special Office for Electoral Crimes (Fiscal Especial para Delitos Electorales), charged with handling complaints of electoral misconduct.

[StJacques]

Okay, lots of news here today, including two items put up between the time I started and finished translating this article. I can only quote Spanish language sources for this information, but I will provide those links for those of you who might want to check them out anyway.

At http://www.el-universal.com.mx/notas/366845.html it is related that the Electoral Tribunal has ordered a partial recount in 149 of the 300 electoral districts in the country. No specific information is given as to how complete the recount will be, but it will last from the 9th through the 14th of August, which seems to impley somewhat extensive recounting, and will be conducted and overseen by "judges and magistrates" from the electoral districts. I am not certain, because no further information is given, but I believe that means that the TEPJF's district offices will manage the recount.

At http://www.el-universal.com.mx/notas/366854.html it is made clear that the recount of votes will only occur in 9.07% of all precincts in the country. The exact number of total precincts covered by the recount order is 11,389, out of a total of 130,437 precincts nationwide. By the inaccurate mathematical operation of extrapolation this should cover just under 3,800,000 total votes (approx. 41,800,000 total votes cast * .0907). The method of recounting is not made perfectly clear -- are they actually going to open all the electoral packets and hand count each ballot? -- but my reading of the article suggests that the procedure which will be followed is to first examine the "reported incident," by which I take it that there will be an examination of the official report of the vote tally, i.e. the "Acta," and then, if doubt is not removed, a hand recount of ballots will ensue. But I'm going to put up my own comment here that I expect all of these precincts to be recounted by hand given the enormous amount of public attention to this controversy in Mexico and the volume of accusation and criticism that have come from AMLO and company.

I'm waiting to hear the reaction from Lopez Obrador and the PRD on all of this. I expect them to be less than happy.

And, if I can be forgiven for tooting my own horn just a bit, I did predict a partial recount in yesterday's thread (see paragraph #1 of my "comments" on the translated article.

[StJacques]

A Mex-Elex ping for you all.

Anyone wishing to track the full list of post-election articles translated can use the forum's "keyword search" option with the unique keyword -- STJTRANSLATION

[Shuttle Shucker]

ObraGore's thugs are protesting but hopefully for naught:

[mjolnir]

Thanks again for the work and the ping! What great news! FINALLY ObraGore's quest is over... But I don't think he'll ever admit it. The decision seems quite reasonable and balanced. I hope that balance neutralizes some of the fury he and his followers would have brought to a more blatant outright rejection of their claims. By not completely extinguishing their hopes, maybe that fury will diminish over as the partial recount goes on-- if not AMLO, then in the PRD rank and file.

[StJacques]

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's over mjolnir. If the partial recount shows any significant change in the margin of victory I wouldn't at all be surprised to see the court go further.

[Texan5]

Thanks for the ping-I do hope this does not become another Floriduh, complete with lawsuits. Does anyone know if Al Gore has gone to Mexico on vacation recently?

[mjolnir]

Argghhh... I thought maybe the Tribunal was humoring AMLO.

Does it sound like the Court will allow the subjective method Al Gore favored, i.e. "nobody can really tell who this chad was for, but I think it was for me"?

[Enterprise]

"I'm waiting to hear the reaction from Lopez Obrador and the PRD on all of this. I expect them to be less than happy."

Easy. The court gave the election to Calderon. Take the claims from the Democrats from 2000 and just substitute Calderon for Bush.

[StJacques]

The ballots are hand-marked with an "X" using a colored pen. If more than one candidate is marked, the ballot is null -- no exceptions, because the voter has the right to request a new ballot if they marked improperly in which case their original one will be destroyed in the presence of the precinct officials before the new ballot is issued. Either the ballot has one "X" only or it is not counted. And if the ballot is not marked at all, then it is not counted either. No hanging chads this time around.

[conservative in nyc]

The real question is where the 9% of the recounted votes will be from. Did ObraGore successfully pull an Algore, and get a recount only in precincts that would be favorable to him? Are they from the PRD-friendly Mexico City and Southern Mexico or PAN-friendly Northern Mexico?

I guess we all will have to stay tuned.

[sully777]

1. It did not challenge, as the law requires, the [counts within the] 300 electoral districts in which the country was divided for the July 2 election, it only did so in 230, by which it left the rest excluded.

This is what the DNC tried to pull in Florida--specific precincts were debated. If there was to be a recount, it will be everywhere.

BTW, AL GORE LOST THE RECOUNT, THE RERECOUNT, THE RERERECOUNT...IN FLORIDA. His handlers simply changed the rules and lost every recount... guess the Mexicans learned the stupidity of such an argument and threw it out.

[BunnySlippers]

OK, no total recount. Does he get the partial?

[BunnySlippers]

Not only that but the Mexican government got accolades after the election for conducting one that appeared at the time to be fool-proof by every standard. Every nation signed off on it ... even Venezuela.

The Obrador has a fit!

[BenLurkin]

This is reminiscent of the "hanging chad" / 'dimpled chad" situation where some argued that the reason there were so many is that democrat poll workers had taken stacks of ballots and attempting to punch through for algore with a stiff wire or knitting needle.

IIRC algore wanted double votes to count for him on the argument that surely people in certain Florida counties would not have wanted Buchanan as president.

[StJacques]

This is a PRD "threat alert" ping, following this morning's decision of the Electoral Tribunal not to authorize a complete recount.

At least one prominent PRD leader, Raymundo Cárdenas, who is a PRD member of the Mexican Senate, has issued a threat to the country when questioned by the Mexico City newspaper La Crónica de Hoy for his reaction to the decision of the Electoral Tribunal.

I'm going to translate some excerpts from Cardenas's response:

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. . . "If there is a partial recount of the votes we are not going to abandon the public route and we will even return to civil disobedience."

This was the statement which PRD Senator Raymundo Cardenas shot out to a question expressing the import of the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Power of the Federation's deciding this Saturday to carry out a partial recount of the votes to clarify the July 2 election.

He explained that the hardening of its [the PRD's] "civil resistance" would imply "commercial boycotts and maneuvers to disrupt telephone and internet service. We have a sufficient number of people disposed to act so as to create a dislocation of the life of the country."

He stated in an iron fashion: "No longer will you see the creativity which suggests showing in a peaceful way that one part of the Mexican population is not in agreement [with the current status of things]."

In alluding to the encampments in the Paseo de la Reforma Avenue, Juarez Avenue, and the Constitution Plaza the legislator from Zacatecas indicated that this is "nothing more than a call to attention of this serious thing which could lead to intervention."

And he added: "I believe that the capital residents who have come to be affected by the closure of the Paseo de la Reforma must take this as evidence of the gravitiy of the situation in Mexico. If the Tribunal commits an error, there will be massive civil disobedience. The Tribunal can avoid this simply by counting all the votes."

He mentioned that it is not in the interest of the For the Good of All coalition to give the [electoral] victory to Andres Manuel [Lopez Obrador] as a gift, but only by counting the votes. "There are 32 thousand Actas [i.e. "official reports of votes"] which were poorly done and therefore it is necessary to make a recount of the votes and to redo the Actas" . . . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, Lopez Obrador and the PRD are now threatening to sabotage the entire public life of the country in an act of what they call "Civil Disobedience." My reading of this threat is that it is quite real. And I don't think the federal government will stand by and do nothing in response if that happens.

I am witnessing a slow downward spiral of events into what could become real trouble by about next weekend unless things get turned around sometime between now and then.

[anymouse]

"Haw! Haw!"

[StJacques]

conservative in nyc, most of the challenged precincts are in PAN country, where Lopez Obrador alleges the counts for Calderon were inflated while his own were deflated. It's Florida in reverse this time.

[StJacques]

It will be a partial recount BunnySlippers.

Hi! :)

[StJacques]

Everything about Al Gore's Florida recount strategy made me sick. What happened in Broward County was nothing short of a crime against the American people.

Just remembering that makes me angry. I'm going to go and reach for my Rolaids jar now.

[hispanarepublicana]

Madre de Dios......
Thanks for your vigilance on this....it could get ugly...what are your odds on a shot fired/a life lost over this?