TSE President Assures Recount is Legally Unwarranted

by CISPES

This morning, the President of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Eugenio Chicas, held a press conference to defend the electoral process as rapid, secure, and transparent in the face of right-wing challenges. Chicas made it clear that the reason for the delay in confirming the final results of yesterday’s elections was not due to anomalies within the electoral process itself, but that rather, “the problem was political actors that could not agree on some of the count votes.”  There are some fourteen official closing forms or “acts,” upon which the final count from a particular voting table is registered, that have not been processed, and an additional seven that show irregularities and are currently being reviewed case-by-case.

Chicas also made clear that there would be no recount of votes, as Article 215 of the Electoral Code stipulates that in order to perform a recount, the number of challenged votes must be greater than the number of votes that comprise the preliminary difference between the two parties. The challenged votes only total 4,191 votes, which is less than the 6,634 vote difference between the FMLN and ARENA, and thus a recount is not called for.