Court rejects Lasso appeal to nullify election; says recount proved legitimacy of vote

Ecuador’s Electoral Court (TCE) has rejected a petition by presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso and his Creo party for nullification of the April 2 runoff election. According to the official vote count, Lasso lost to Lenin Moreno of Alianza País by a 51.16% to 48.84% margin.

Andres Paez

The petition, filed by Lasso’s running mate Andres Paez April 21, claimed that irregularities in the voting and vote counting process should invalidate the election result.

According to Paez, Creo found “serious irregularities” in 4,200 of the voting precincts and also claimed that the crash of the National Electoral Council website brought the legitimacy of the election into question.

According to Juan Pablo Pozo, president of the election council, the court found that the April 18 vote recount, which recounted most of the precincts that Lasso and Paez called “irregular”, was sufficient in dispelling doubts about accuracy of the election. The recount found no major problems in the original count.

In addition, Pozo said that the election council’s website was backed up by provincial websites and that no data was lost or altered.