Election officials in Colombia have been issued a court order to recount 14% of the vote from the March 9 congressional elections, according to local media.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) will have 20 days to examine the votes in question and determine their validity, after the court ruled in favor of a MIRA party suit alleging massive fraud, according to the national El Tiempo newspaper.
The results of some 13,700 booths, accounting for 14% of the total vote, have been called into question, in the context of congressional elections mired in accusations of electoral fraud and vote buying, reported El Tiempo.
CNE Director Pablo Gil, however, told the newspaper that he was not yet aware of the full extent of the revision. “They ordered the recount of some booths,” he said, “but we don’t know how many, and don’t know the entirety of the judicial decision.”
Of the hundreds of claims of electoral fraud that emerged following the congressional elections, most came from the MIRA political party, which saw its congressional representation all but vanish in this year’s race.
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“The MIRA party has always had similar results in the senate and the house of representatives. In 2006 for example, the difference was .8% and this year it was 25%; that is why we ask for the revision of more than 13,700 voting booths,” explained MIRA’s president, Senator Carlos Baena.