Saturday, November 30, 2013

LIBRE DETAILS ELECTORAL FRAUD - English translation of original communiqué

The following is an English translation by La Voz de los de Abajo of the official communiqué read by the LIBRE party at the November 29th, 2013 press conference in Tegucigalpa. The original speech in Spanish is available in two parts online: part 1 / part 2

Lo que sigue es una traducción al inglés por La Voz de los de Abajo del comunicado oficial de LIBRE leído en la conferencia de prensa del 29 de noviembre, 2013 en Tegucigalpa. Se puede ver la versión original en línea en dos partes: parte 1 / parte 2


PARTY FOR FREEDOM AND RE-FOUNDATION: “LIBRE”

EXECUTIVE REPORT ABOUT THE 2013 GENERAL ELECTIONS PROCESS

1.     THE RESULTS CONTAINED IN THE RECORDS OF THE RECEIVING ELECTORAL TABLES (MER) WERE ALTERED AND FALSIFIED IN THEIR SUMS IN THE OFFICIAL BULLETINS EMITED BY THE SUPREME ELECTORAL TRIBUNAL (TSE).

2.     THE SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS PUBLISHED BY THE TSE DOES NOT COINCIDE IN THOUSANDS OF CASES WITH THE PHYSICAL COPIES OF THE RECORDS

3.     WE ASK FOR THE COMPARISON AND RECOUNT OF THE 16,135 ORIGINAL RECORDS FROM THE CLOSE OF THE PRESIDENTIAL VOTING, AS PROVIDED FOR IN THE ELECTORAL LAW ARTICLE 15, NUMBER 12.

4.     IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE WARNINGS IN THE REPORT FROM THE INTERNTIONAL AUDIT BY THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES, WE CALL FOR A POST-ELECTION AUDIT OF THE ENTIRE SYSTEM OF TRANSMISSION (SIEDE).

5.     WE ASK FOR REPORTS ABOUT THE ELECTORAL DOCUMENT CALLED THE ‘CREDENTIAL’ FROM THE POLITICAL PARTIES WHO, ACCORDING TO THE TRIBUNAL’S OWN FIGURES, RECEIVED FROM THE SUPREME ELECTORAL TRIBUNAL MORE THAN 160,000 CREDENTIALS YET ONLY RECEIVED 17,516 VOTES AT THE PRESIDENTIAL LEVEL, MAKING IT A FALLACY THAT MER IS MADE UP OF ALL THE POLITICAL PARTIES.

The FREEDOM AND REFOUNDATION PARTY (LIBRE) does not accept nor recognize the official preliminary results published by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, due to the series of alterations, falsifications and irregularities reflected through the Transmission System SIEDE.

I-              EVIDENCE OF ALTERATION DURING SCANNING AND ADDING OF RESULTS OF MER RECORDS

                                               i.     After comparing 14,593 MER records that the LIBRE party received physically at our data center to the records published in the SIEDE system (last consulted at 11:00pm Thursday November 28th, 2013) we found:
a.     82,301 too many votes counted in favor of the National Party
b.     55,720 votes not counted for LIBRE.
c.     34,184 votes not counted for PAC.
d.     29,063 votes not counted for the Liberal Party.
e.     13,307 votes not counted for other parties.

                                             ii.     Numerous MER records were scanned in the morning hours of November 24th, according to the report that appears on the ATX (Scanner Center), vertically in lowercase.

                                            iii.     Numerous records transmitted by the TSE to the political parties and those published on the web page do not coincide with the originals received by LIBRE’s members of the MER, in terms of the signatures, which confirms the alterations.

                                            iv.     Numerous records published by the TSE coincide with the characteristics of those transmitted during the simulations.

                                             v.     Numerous Certified Records of the Municipal Electoral Tribunals were scanned or entered into the System, showing it TURNED OUT TO BE FALSE that the scanners were programmed to only transmit the Final Records of the Receiving Electoral Tables (MER) and that for security purposes no other electoral document could be transmitted. Supposedly each MER record would have a bar code that guaranteed it could only be transmitted by the ATX scanner assigned to the corresponding MER.

II-            VOTING OF ABOUT 70% at 12% OF THE MER.

It was found that at 12% of the polls there is an inflation of results, since the average voting in each MER is 61% and in this block of polls the voting is over 70% and the count at 85% of these MER’s favored the National Party candidate, an indication that necessitates comparison of the electoral registry with voters in order to discard the votes of those who have moved or died.

III-          RECORDS NOT TRANSMITTED TO THE POLITICAL PARTIES, NOT PUBLISHED BY THE TSE AND WITH A SUMMARY OF RESULTS OF 0. (Out of 14,593).

At least 2,805 MER records were not transmitted to the political parties nor published on the TSE webpage, within this category are also included the records whose “summary of results” appears as 0 and those sent for Special Scrutiny (2,134 records).

The International Audit carried out by the Organization of American States OAS established on the 20th of November, three days before the elections, that: “The process/functioning evaluated in accordance with the Operative Plan: special scrutiny does not meet requirements due to inability to evaluate.”
These records represent an electoral volume of 883,140 voters, mostly distributed amongst the departments of Cortes, Francisco Morazán, Santa Barbara and Yoro. The projection of these figures would give LIBRE the victory in the elections.


IV-          160,000 MER CREDENTIALS WERE GIVEN BY THE TSE TO 5 PARTIES; FAPER, UD, DC, ALIANZA PATRIOTICA AND PINU-SD.

In accordance with the law, the Receiving Electoral Tables (MER) are made up of a principal and replacement member proposed by each of the political parties through their representatives. The total number of MER’s in the 2013 electoral process was 16,135, meaning that each party received credentials for that number of both principal and replacement MER members.

Up to today, November 29th, the count by the TSE indicates that amongst them all, these 5 parties obtained 17,516 presidential votes, a fact that proves that the credentials that they signed for were given to members of other parties. On average, at 68% of the MER’s the parties PINU, DC, FAPER, UD and Alianza Patriótica do not have a single vote.

V-            REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL AUDIT TO THE TRANSMISSION SYSTEM (SIEDE) BY THE OAS AND PRESENTED TO THE TSE ON NOVEMBER 20TH, 2013.

This report contains conclusions in terms of security and general conclusions with regards to quality and transparency. It can be found on the OAS page and there it shows the vulnerability of the system and the lack of security and the lack of guarantees in the transmission and publishing of results in addition to the counting. Amongst them is established:

                                              i.     “The security analysis of the distinct elements of the SIEDE has shown that the current System as of the date of this report presents certain deficiencies of adequate implementation of security measures that in carrying out these types of projects should be considered as the minimum standards for guaranteeing the integrity of the system.”

                                             ii.     “Quality- In relation to the evaluation of the quality of the SIEDE, it is necessary to mention that the absence of manuals of requirements and procedures constitutes an impediment for the analysis of the project based in metrics of compliance with standards. In the same way, it is necessary to clarify that the findings of the audit have been established based on evaluations up to the present date concluding the current Report, which means that the system could present improvement in the remaining days before carrying out the electoral process.”

“Relating to the consolidation, integration and publishing of the results, the auditing was able to observe problems in the design of the systems and algorithms applied that could affect their operations in the absence of corrective measures. Dues to this being an area that affects the transparency of the System, it is a critical element since it could affect the quality of the entire SIEDE.

                                            iii.     “In relation to the module of consolidation, integration and publishing of the results, the audit detected faults that showed non-compliance with quality standards required for this type of programs. It is important to emphasize that aspects such as correction, reliability and efficiency have not been met by these modules up to the finalizing of the simulations”.

                                            iv.     “As far as the publishing of the results, the audit was able to show design problems that forced a redesign of the application. For that reason up until the present date, it has not been possible to carry out an analysis of vulnerabilities since there is not a definitive version of the program.”

VI-          VULNERABILITY OF THE SYSTEM

On an internet page (recovered November 26th, 2011), are published a series of code sequences in the postgreSQI language, which drives the database used by the SIEDE of the TSE to generate the structure for the database, tables, fields, etc. which constitute a fundamental part of the general structure of SIEDE. In the leaked code, you can see the information regarding three tables: votes, details, candidates and votes, their fields, and the detail of the relationships and keys for each one. It is important to note that at the end there is a query showing a search for a candidate with the parameter "Mauricio" and it shows the list of figures (id, first last name) of candidates with the first name “Mauricio," thereby indicating that whoever uploaded this page to the web had access to the database registry and not just to the structure.

VII-        DECLARATIONS AND REPORTS FROM INTERNATIONAL ACCOMPANIERS AND OBSERVERS

Judge Baltasar Garzón. “There were clear indications of manipulation and electoral fraud in last Sunday’s elections in Honduras. The reach is not determined but there was buying of votes, buying of credentials, clear influence and attempts to manipulate the electronic count and the transmission of records,” declared the Spanish ex-judge during a visit to Paraguay. In Honduras, Garzón was part of an observation mission of the International Human Rights Federation made up of 11 people from Canada, the United States, Spain, Colombia, Sweden and Belgium. “We all unanimously verified that there were clear indications of electoral manipulation and fraud.”

Carter Center. The delegation was headed by two members of the Friends of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the ex-Presidents Carlos Mesa of Bolivia and Martín Torrijos of Panamá along with Dr. Jennifer McCoy, director of the Americas Program for the Carter Center. In the press release the delegation expresses that “Vote tallying continues. A number of parties have questioned one or more aspects of the process.  The delegation believes that it is very important that the parties make their complaints known to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in accordance with the procedures established by electoral law.  It trusts that the Tribunal will resolve these challenges based on the established norms.”

Mission of the European Union. The European Union Mission observes that 30% of the electoral census is not real. Here is the corresponding part in their preliminary report. “Based on the Civil Registry and generated together by the National Registry of People and the TSE, the electoral census has significant problems that constitute a weakness of the electoral process. There has been no systematic attempt to fix it and generally it allows that about 30% of its entries correspond to people who have emigrated or died, while in a smaller number of cases there are citizens who, though living, have been excluded as dead. In other occasions, there have been discoveries of unsolicited address changes. While the first cases come from administrative failures, the accusations of fraudulent address changes were persistent throughout the electoral period and the European Union Electoral Observation Mission observers registered credible accusations of that type in which the National or Liberal Parties were always implicated.”

Today, Leo Gabriel, Austrian journalist and anthropologist and member of the European Union delegation said that based on the fraud he observed, it seems that “the European Union prefers a stable dictatorship to a democracy.”

The Juan Bosch Foundation titles their report, “Elections in Honduras: No to another electoral slaughter in Latin America.” They say, “Among the things we will see in the current report are: a) Manipulation of the media; b) repression and intimidation of international observers and accompaniers, c) Vulnerability of the Honduran electoral system and the lack of guarantees for a transparent and equitable competition amongst candidates; d) Multiple anomalies during the electoral process such as the buying of votes and the trafficking of credentials; e) Serious anomalies in the process of public scrutiny; f) Unjustified withholding of 19% of the records retained by the TSE and sent to special scrutiny without explanation; g) Declaration of 1,000 records won by the LIBRE party as having inconsistencies; h) Lack of resolution of 611 voting centers to transmit the results of 983 electoral tables; i) Replacement and adulteration of the real records; j) Scanning of around 1,800 records that never made it to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.” The report concludes saying, “Unfortunately, the only conclusions one can arrive at after observing and accompanying the Honduran electoral process are negative. What we were able to observe and verify is a fragile, vulnerable process lacking a system of consequences for the diverse situations of irregularity and anomaly that we have exposed. If this is not rectified in accordance with the essential values of democracy and respect for popular sovereignty, we are headed down the slippery slope to what Juan Bosch called the “electoral slaughter” referring to the electoral processes lived through in the Dominican Republic after 1966, following the coup d’état in 1963 and the U.S. occupation of 1965-1966. We were also able to clearly see TSE partiality towards the National Party, ignoring multiple demands, complaints and denunciations by the LIBRE party and PAC.”

VIII-      CONCLUSIONS

                                               i.     To proceed to the revision and verification, record by record, incorporated to the system, comparing the summary of the results and physical records of every one of the 16,135 Receiving Electoral Tables at the presidential level and with the presence of the LIBRE party, thereby processing 100% of the records in accordance with the law.

                                             ii.     To proceed immediately to audit the SIEDE system through an international post-electoral audit to verify its vulnerabilities, the alterations and the falsifications of electoral documents and their results.

                                            iii.     To ask for reports about the Electoral Document called “Credential,” more than 160,000 to those political parties who didn’t reach in the polls even the number of credentials given to them by the TSE. Since the credential is an electoral document to accredit the main member and replacement from each political party, if the political party did not receive as many votes as people it accredited, it implies that it shared that public document, received under its responsibility, with members of other political parties. Therefore, it is an oft-repeated fallacy that the MER is made up of all of the political parties.

                                            iv.     That the Public Ministry through the Special Prosecutor for Electoral Crimes move to open a file for an investigation of all of the alterations and falsifications produced in the process, thereby threatening the will of the people.

                                             v.     Finally, we present on the screen, just one example of MER 11,256 from the Department of Islas de la Bahía, Voting Center Escuela Marco Aurelio Soto, Municipality of Jose Santos Guardiola, town of Jose Santos Guardiola. This MER is the one that is on the page of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. And the next one is the original that arrived to the party with all of the signatures of the members of the MER. This is evidence of the irregularities and the falsifications committed by the system.



Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Nobember 29th, 2013
Party of Freedom and Re-Foundation (LIBRE)


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