Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said Tuesday that he can prove that the electoral census was inflated with more than 885,000 voter ahead of the first round on the presidential election.
In a post on social media platform X, Petro said his decision to reject the results of the preliminary count presented by the National Registry’s Office was based on evidence of fraud “I can surrender to the competent authority.”
“The modification involved updating the voter registry and adjusting the number of polling stations and polling tables” in the vote-counting software on May 26, said the president.
According to Petro, the modifications were made after the legal deadline after which the software was “frozen” until after Sunday’s first round, a process overseen by the National Registrar’s Office and the Inspector General’s Office.
Both the National Registrar and the Inspector General said that the software was frozen on Saturday, a day before the first round of elections, in the presence of international observers.
According to the president, the modification included the addition of 885,409 voters to the National Registry’s voter census in which 41,421,973 voters were registered ahead of the alleged modification.
If this is true, this change is not visible on the National Registry website, which shows that 57.88% of the formally registered voters turned out to vote.
Last but not least, Petro claimed there was a discrepancy between the 120,527 ballot boxes registered by the National Registry and the 122,020 registered on the election website.
Petro failed to add 1,489 ballot boxes that were used for voting abroad in the week ahead of the elections and were duly reported by the National Registry on Thursday.
By adding these ballot boxes, only four ballot boxes did not appear on the website that allows voters to scrutinize the results for themselves.
The National Registrar’s Office and the Inspector General’s Office did not immediately respond to the president’s accusations.
Electoral authorities began scrutinizing the tally sheets on Monday, which will result in a formal result in the coming weeks.
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