ANALYSIS OF DATA FROM MEXICAN ELECTION RECOUNT RAISES SERIOUS QUESTIONS
Study Recommends More Transparency for Wider Recount That Begins This Week
Contact:
Mark Weisbrot, 202-746-7264
Dan Beeton, 202-293-5380 x 104; 202-256-6116 (cell)
Washington, D.C.: An analysis of the first partial recount of Mexico’s
presidential election raises a number of questions about the electoral
process, most importantly about its transparency. The study, conducted
by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), also found a
number of unexplained anomalies in the data.
“Mexico’s electoral authorities should be conducting a impartial inquiry
into what happened in this election, and making the results known to the
public as accurately and quickly as possible,” said Mark Weisbrot,
Co-Director of CEPR and co-author of this report. “It is clear that they
did not fulfill this responsibility for the first partial recount.”
Among the problems with the transparency of the first recount, which
encompassed about 2.2 percent of the ballot boxes, are:
* It has taken a month since the recount for the results to be
posted on the web site of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), as
opposed to the original count, which was posted immediately. The
information from the first recount should have been immediately
available because it is very relevant to the Federal Electoral
Tribunal’s decision regarding the larger recount, which begins tomorrow.
* The results posted still do not sufficiently explain what happened
in the recounted areas. For example, some 116 ballot boxes apparently
lost an average of 63 percent of their votes in the recount. The IFE has
still not explained to the public how this happened or where these votes
went.
An analysis of the recounted ballots also shows a number of anomalies.
For example:
* Most of the difference between the recounted and the original
totals is due to 116 ballot boxes that lost an average of 63 percent of
their votes during the recount. These were largely ballot boxes that
contained more than the proscribed limit of 750 votes.
* Not all of the ballot boxes that had more than 750 votes were
re-opened. The ones that were opened had a significantly higher
percentage of votes for Lopez Obrador than the ones that were not
opened. This raises the possibility that the recount gave Lopez Obrador
a net loss of votes because of the way in which these “over voted”
ballot boxes, which lost most of their votes during the recount, were
selected to be opened.
* The majority of the null votes (17,129 or about 2 percent of the
total votes) in the recounted ballot boxes were removed in the recount.
The IFE did not explain whether any of these null votes became valid
votes in the recount. If so, this is potentially important because the
total number of null votes in the presidential race is more than three
times the margin of difference between the two top candidates.
The authors note that it is possible that these and other anomalies
found in the recounted data, described in the paper, have reasonable
explanations. However, what is most difficult to explain is the lack of
transparency in the process and the inordinate amount of time that the
IFE has taken to publicize information – still very incomplete – on the
recount that has taken place.
“It is unfortunate that the Federal Electoral Tribunal made a decision
about which ballot boxes to recount before the results of this first
partial recount were explained to the public,” said Weisbrot.
“Furthermore, if this new recount is not conducted very differently than
the last one, it is difficult to see how it will be of much use in
obtaining a credible result.”
The full paper is available at
http://www.cepr.net/publications/mexico_recount_2006_08.pdf
The Center for Economic and Policy Research is an independent,
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on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's
lives. CEPR's Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel Laureate
economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz, and Richard Freeman,
Professor of Economics at Harvard University.
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