NYT : Mexican Court Rejects Election Fraud Challenges

Mexican Court Rejects Election Fraud Challenges

by JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. | August 28, 2006

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 28 — Felipe Calderón seemed virtually assured of being named president of Mexico next week after the country’s highest electoral tribunal today threw out legal challenges from his leftist opponent, who claims that widespread fraud warped the results of last month’s national election.

The seven-member tribunal stopped short of officially naming Mr. Calderón, a conservative, the president-elect. But it ruled unanimously that the leftist presidential candidate, Ándres Manuel López Obrador, had failed to prove that irregularities in many of the polling places stemmed from fraud, nor had he proven that the errors affected him more than his opponent.

The judges said in open court today that the tribunal had ordered the votes from scores of polling places annulled for irregularities found during a partial recount, but that the final result would not change. They also made it clear they found no evidence of fraud.

“Based on all the annulments that were deemed necessary, all the parties lost a considerable number of votes, but that did not affect the result,” Magistrate José Alejandro Luna Ramos said.

Mr. López Obrador, 53, a leftist and former mayor of Mexico City who favors spending more on the poor, has declared he will not accept the ruling, calling it part of a conspiracy to rob him of victory.

Mr. Calderón, a 44-year-old former energy commissioner from the National Action Party of President Vicente Fox, narrowly won the July 2 presidential election by 243,000 votes out of 41 million ballots, according to the initial official tally. A social conservative, he has promised to entice foreign investment through public works and a flat tax. He did not make a public statement today.

All told, the court annulled 81,010 votes for Mr. Calderón and 76,897 for Mr. López Obrador after recounting ballots in about 9 percent of the precincts to satisfy legal challenges. Crossing out those votes gave the leftist candidate a slight boost of 4,183 votes, far fewer than he needed to catch up, electoral officials said.

The court has until Sept. 6 to issue a final tally and name the president-elect. The decision cannot be appealed.

Mr. López Obrador has become more and more extreme in his accusations over the last month, saying not only did his opponent stuff ballot boxes and dispose of votes for Mr. López Obrador, but that the court itself had been bribed. His supporters have blocked the main avenue through downtown Mexico City for a month and engaged in other acts of civil disobedience.

On Sunday, Mr. López Obrador told a large crowd of supporters that any ruling that put Mr. Calderón in office without recounting all ballots “would be an abuse of the people’s rights, a rupture of the constitutional order and a coup d’état.”

After the court ruled today, a small group of demonstrators carried a coffin labeled “Democracy” through the center of town.

Mr. López Obrador has called for a national assembly to be held in the city’s main square, the Plaza de la Constitución, on Sept. 16 to decide the future of his campaign of civil disobedience to “save democracy” and “purify public life.” He has suggested the assembly could name him president of an alternative government.

Leonel Cota Montaño, the national leader of Mr. López Obrador’s Party of the Democratic Revolution, asserted that the court seemed to ignore evidence of fraud. “Everything indicates they are going to impose Felipe Calderón on the country,” he said. “Everything indicates these rulings are given on these terms: change whatever, except the final result.”

Using a series of arguments based on mistakes poll workers made in counting and recording ballots, Mr. López Obrador has persuaded many of his followers the government cheated them of victory.

In more than half the 130,000 polling places, the poll workers, who are citizens chosen at random and trained by the government, did a poor job of keeping track of ballots.

In thousands of cases, they recorded that they had received fewer ballots in the morning than were found deposited in the boxes at the end of the day, suggesting that extra votes were added. In thousands of others, the ballots cast added to those left over did not equal the number of ballots poll workers had received in the morning, suggesting that some ballots were missing.

Federal election officials say that all these discrepancies were the result of human errors, even though they surfaced in about 70,000 polling places. To prevent fraud and to make the task as simple as possible, they say, poll workers count ballots once and write down numbers in various boxes on a form, rather than to try to make the numbers reconcile. Different workers are in charge of counting the ballots received, the ballots cast and the ballots left over, and the number of voters. They often make mistakes, officials acknowledge.

Mr. López Obrador’s camp has used the errors, however, to generate doubt. They have also pointed out the Federal Electoral Institute, which organized the voting, has no members from their party because of a legislative deal between the other two major parties. In addition, they have cast a spotlight on a brother-in-law of Mr. Calderón’s who received contracts to provide the electoral institute with software, hinting he had access to voter lists and could have erased the leftist candidate’s supporters. (Election officials deny this is possible.)

While these arguments have persuaded many who voted for Mr. López Obrador that there was something suspicious about the official count, the judges said the pattern of irregularities affected both parties equally and did not suggest fraud.

“In this case there are many claims that are being rejected for a lack of evidence,” the Chief Magistrate, Leonel Castillo González, said today.