CNE rejects Citizens Revolution election challenge

Following a review of ballots and vote tally sheets, the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Thursday rejected the claim by the Citizen Revolution movement of major irregularities in vote counting in the April 13 presidential runoff between President Daniel Noboa and Luisa González. The challenge sought to annul about 1,800 tally sheets from the election.

The National Electoral Council voted unanimously Thursday to reject Citizens Revolution’s challenge of the presidential runoff election.

The CNE report concluded that there were no legal or technical grounds for opening ballot boxes and recounting votes. Citizen Revolutions representatives claimed 1,294 tally sheets lacked signatures of election officials and that 435 ballots contained counting errors.

“Upon inspection, the claim that the voting sheets lacked signatures is incorrect,” the report said. “In some cases, signatures appear on the back of the sheets instead of the front, but all the necessary signatures are present. In the case of the numerical inconsistencies, these were minor errors that did not favor one candidate over the other.”

The report concluded that, taken together, all the votes under challenge would not change the outcome of the election.

CNE legal advisor Nora Guzmán approved the final report and concluded that the requirement of Articles 143 and 144 of the Code of Democracy had been fulfilled by the review.

Following rejection of the challenge, CNE released its official final election count showing Noboa won with 55.63% of the vote to González’s 44.37%. The council said 82.98% of 13.7 million eligible voters cast ballots.