The Tribunal Supremo Electoral has tallied approximately 54% of the national vote, they told us last night before suspending work until later today.
Their website-- not always accessible-- is posting preliminary numbers by Departamento (state, for North Americans).
Looking over those numbers, albeit preliminary, we are struck by the report for Cortés-- the Departamento in which is located San Pedro Sula, second-largest city and industrial capital of the country.
These show Salvador Nasralla of the Partido Anti-Corrupción leading with 35.1% of the vote.
LIBRE is in second place, with 23.46% of the votes.
The Partido Nacional is in the third place with 22.15%.
The Liberal Party is down at 18.8%
That strikes us as very, very odd. There was at least one report from an electoral mesa yesterday that said LIBRE votes were being reported as PAC votes. But that would take a lot of votes to be shifted: PAC is said to have 122,362 votes to LIBRE's 81,796.
The total for Cortés is only up to about 350,000 votes. Only 168,863 of those votes come from San Pedro Sula, so there is obviously room for change here.
But it still calls our attention to see PAC seeming to lead, not only in Cortés, but in San Pedro Sula itself (with 36.42% of the counted votes).
Monday, November 25, 2013
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Exit polls and partial vote counts
As promised, the Tribunal Supremo Electoral broadcast some official results at 9 PM Sunday.
Their summary, with only 24% of the vote counted: 34% Juan Orlando Hernández, 28% Xiomara Castro, 20% Mauricio Villeda, 15% Salvador Nasrallah.
The margin dividing the two top candidates is quite small: 249,660 to 202,501-- so less than 50,000 votes separate LIBRE and the Partido Nacional. The eligible electorate is 5.3 million.
Does this tell us who will win? no, it does not. We do not know which results are included; there is no way to project from likely voting patterns in areas already counted to other similar areas.
Long before the TSE broadcast these partial counts, the Honduran press owned by supporters of Hernández was calling the election for him, based on exit polling by Ingenieria Gerencial. This is the same firm that did polling for the Partido Nacional, those private polls that were alluded to during the campaign but never published.
Meanwhile, LIBRE, relying on other exit polls, saw its candidate emerging as the winner. Without a newspaper ready to declare Xiomara Castro the winner, this would only matter if you were someone (like us) who expects exit polls in Honduras to be inherently unreliable-- and thus expect contradictory results.
Before the TSE circulated their preliminary counts, Xiomara Castro announced that she has been elected; on twitter, the statement read
This at least should serve to prevent all the Honduran press from prematurely calling the election for Hernández. Of course, it also has opened Castro up to critique from pundits nationally and internationally.
Meanwhile, Bloggings by Boz tweeted
Except for the absolute number (we were kicking around 34-35% in discussions internally) that sounds about right to us: two diametrically opposed candidates separated by a threadbare margin. Not 6%-- this election should turn on 1-2% of the final vote count.
Their summary, with only 24% of the vote counted: 34% Juan Orlando Hernández, 28% Xiomara Castro, 20% Mauricio Villeda, 15% Salvador Nasrallah.
The margin dividing the two top candidates is quite small: 249,660 to 202,501-- so less than 50,000 votes separate LIBRE and the Partido Nacional. The eligible electorate is 5.3 million.
Does this tell us who will win? no, it does not. We do not know which results are included; there is no way to project from likely voting patterns in areas already counted to other similar areas.
Long before the TSE broadcast these partial counts, the Honduran press owned by supporters of Hernández was calling the election for him, based on exit polling by Ingenieria Gerencial. This is the same firm that did polling for the Partido Nacional, those private polls that were alluded to during the campaign but never published.
Meanwhile, LIBRE, relying on other exit polls, saw its candidate emerging as the winner. Without a newspaper ready to declare Xiomara Castro the winner, this would only matter if you were someone (like us) who expects exit polls in Honduras to be inherently unreliable-- and thus expect contradictory results.
Before the TSE circulated their preliminary counts, Xiomara Castro announced that she has been elected; on twitter, the statement read
Con los resultados que he recibido de boca de urna de todo el país, puedo decirles: Soy la Presidenta de Honduras. [With the results that I have received from the edge of the ballotbox from throughout the country, I can say to you: I am the President of Honduras.]
This at least should serve to prevent all the Honduran press from prematurely calling the election for Hernández. Of course, it also has opened Castro up to critique from pundits nationally and internationally.
Meanwhile, Bloggings by Boz tweeted
I analyzed the exit poll data with an adjusted turnout model and got 31.5% to 31% in favor of Hernandez, well within any margin of error.
Except for the absolute number (we were kicking around 34-35% in discussions internally) that sounds about right to us: two diametrically opposed candidates separated by a threadbare margin. Not 6%-- this election should turn on 1-2% of the final vote count.
Unfolding Election News
You really should be on Twitter following @hsnelection.
But since you are not, here are some news notes:
Two newly trained election participants belonging to the Carbon Cooperative of the National Council of Rural Workers were shot and killed last night in Cantarranas, returning from election training:
The broadcasters at Radio Globo (to whom we are listening) are reporting that their transmitter has been surrounded by the military. Anyone who remembers 2009 should find that worrisome: direct attacks on the media facilities to stop them from transmitting were part of the strategies of the Michelletti regime
Honduras Resists is reporting this now as well:
They have a partial transcription (see below) that can be translated as follows:
But since you are not, here are some news notes:
Two newly trained election participants belonging to the Carbon Cooperative of the National Council of Rural Workers were shot and killed last night in Cantarranas, returning from election training:
Maria Amparo Pineda Duarte was the elected President of the Cooperative. Julio Ramon Maradiaga was an active member. The community is the site of an ongoing land struggle in the area, and both victims were active members in the LIBRE party.
The broadcasters at Radio Globo (to whom we are listening) are reporting that their transmitter has been surrounded by the military. Anyone who remembers 2009 should find that worrisome: direct attacks on the media facilities to stop them from transmitting were part of the strategies of the Michelletti regime
Honduras Resists is reporting this now as well:
The announcer is quoted: “We have not requested this [military] presence. They want to use this to pressure us and shut us up, but Radio Globo will be on the air, whatever it takes…”
HSN Note: Radio Globo was one of the few media outlets to refuse to sign the “Media Pact,” in which major media outlets essentially gave up their right to contradict government pronouncements on the election. ...
They have a partial transcription (see below) that can be translated as follows:
Radio Globo denounces at this moment, on the point of 6:20 AM, that military authorities arrived beginning last night at the Cerrro de Canta Gallo, where the transmission equipment for Radio Globo and Channel 11 is installed, media that did not agree to the media gag that the TSE tried to impose on the country.
Since last night the military has taken the installations where the transmission antennas of Radio Globo, Globo TV and Channel 11 are. We cannot be silent in the face of this new outrage by the Armed Forces of Honduras.
A sad reminder of how on the 28th of June of 2009 the military assaulted the installations, throwing acid, breaking cables and gates in order to leave Radio Globo off the air.
[Radio Globo denuncia en este momento, al filo de las 6:20 am, que autoridades militares llegaron desde anoche al Cerro de Canta Gallo, donde se instalan los equipos de transmisión de señales de radio Globo y Canal 11, medios que no se sometieron a la mordaza mediática que el TSE pretende imponer en el país
Desde anoche los militares se han tomado las instalaciones donde se ubican las antenas de transmisión de Radio Globo, Globo TV y Canal 11. No podemos callar frente a este nuevo atropello de las Fuerzas Armadas de Honduras.
Un triste recordatorio de como el 28 de junio de 2009 los militares asaltaron las instalaciones, lanzaron ácido, rompieron cables y portones para dejar a Radio Globo fuera del aire.]
Saturday, November 23, 2013
"The image of openness"? Election Observers Harassed
The normally open borders of Honduras with its neighbors are only partly open this week. Venacio Cervantes, head of Immigration, said yesterday that the borders are open, but that foreigners must justify their trip into Honduras at this time. "All entrances will be controlled," said the retired General.
Actually, he said a lot more: "All hotheads and national and foreign agitators who promote boycotting the election will be neutralized".
Today, he was ordered by Porfirio Lobo Sosa to stop, after two separate incidents of harassment of foreign election observers were reported by domestic and foreign press.
Cervantes reportedly said that he was
Unfortunately, the "hotheads" he thought would be slowing the electoral process included duly accredited election observers-- on whom any hope of this election being seen as transparent rests.
The earliest incident happened Friday, Nov. 22. ERIC, the Equipo de Reflexión Investigación y Comunicación, a Jesuit organization long established in Honduras, had its offices in El Progresso, Yoro, raided by Immigration police from the town. They entered a room where over 100 foreign election observers had just finished receiving training from a Tribunal Supremo Electoral official, and demanded that the Guatemalans, Salvadorans, US Citizens, and Canadians that made up the group present their TSE accreditation documents.
They also ordered the leader of the group, Alexis Lanza, to bring everyone down to the nearest Immigration office for unstated reasons.
Honduran Immigration police have no authority to enforce the election law, nor have they been formally asked to do so by the TSE. They have no legal power to ask for a foreign election observer's TSE accreditation documents. The only thing they can legally ask someone to produce is their passport or other immigration documents that identify them and authorize them to be in the country.
Then on Saturday, November 23, military police entered the Aurora Hotel in Tegucigalpa, and ordered everyone in the hotel to leave their rooms, interrupting a meeting of LIBRE activist Eduardo Enrique Reina with his duly assigned and accredited foreign election observers. All were asked to identify themselves and were threatened with explusion from the country.
That was too much for David Matamoros, president of the TSE, who ordered Immigration to stop following and harassing foreigners, saying
Matamoros says he went directly to President Lobo Sosa to ask that Immigration, which is part of the executive branch, be ordered to cease its operations following foreigners in the country. Matamoros also issued instructions to the police and Armed Forces pointing out that they, in support of the election, were supposed to protect, not harass, election observers.
Anything to preserve the image of openness and tranquility.
Actually, he said a lot more: "All hotheads and national and foreign agitators who promote boycotting the election will be neutralized".
Today, he was ordered by Porfirio Lobo Sosa to stop, after two separate incidents of harassment of foreign election observers were reported by domestic and foreign press.
Cervantes reportedly said that he was
not going to permit disorder from [those] that come to slow down the electoral process, and those hotheads who want to protest and make unrest and confusion; the armed forces will proceed in accordance with all that's legal and we shall be forceful in the application of the law.
Unfortunately, the "hotheads" he thought would be slowing the electoral process included duly accredited election observers-- on whom any hope of this election being seen as transparent rests.
The earliest incident happened Friday, Nov. 22. ERIC, the Equipo de Reflexión Investigación y Comunicación, a Jesuit organization long established in Honduras, had its offices in El Progresso, Yoro, raided by Immigration police from the town. They entered a room where over 100 foreign election observers had just finished receiving training from a Tribunal Supremo Electoral official, and demanded that the Guatemalans, Salvadorans, US Citizens, and Canadians that made up the group present their TSE accreditation documents.
They also ordered the leader of the group, Alexis Lanza, to bring everyone down to the nearest Immigration office for unstated reasons.
Honduran Immigration police have no authority to enforce the election law, nor have they been formally asked to do so by the TSE. They have no legal power to ask for a foreign election observer's TSE accreditation documents. The only thing they can legally ask someone to produce is their passport or other immigration documents that identify them and authorize them to be in the country.
Then on Saturday, November 23, military police entered the Aurora Hotel in Tegucigalpa, and ordered everyone in the hotel to leave their rooms, interrupting a meeting of LIBRE activist Eduardo Enrique Reina with his duly assigned and accredited foreign election observers. All were asked to identify themselves and were threatened with explusion from the country.
That was too much for David Matamoros, president of the TSE, who ordered Immigration to stop following and harassing foreigners, saying
They told me they were following two people who had entered the country 10 days ago, but at this moment we cannot have any discussion of the act of going to a place where we have invited foreigners, because we must maintain the image of openness, the image of peace and tranquility which we want to have, not only for the Hondurans, but also for the international observers.
Matamoros says he went directly to President Lobo Sosa to ask that Immigration, which is part of the executive branch, be ordered to cease its operations following foreigners in the country. Matamoros also issued instructions to the police and Armed Forces pointing out that they, in support of the election, were supposed to protect, not harass, election observers.
Anything to preserve the image of openness and tranquility.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Auditing the Vote-Counting Software
The OAS got a chance earlier this month to see a snapshot of the Sistema Integrado de Escrutinio y Divulgación Electoral (SIEDE). They found the system worked-- sort of. Citing "poor performance" in key steps, the OAS reports that Honduras still needs to finish the last bits of code to ensure "verification of results".
These conclusions were translated by the Honduran press into headlines like "The system to transmit the vote tallies can work well" and "The OAS discards [the possibility of] fraud in the elections in Honduras and the electoral entity [the TSE] asks for respect" and "The OAS certifies that the equipment to transmit the electoral results is trustworthy".
Not quite.
The report is an audit of the software that's going to be used to count votes for things like security, accuracy, transparency. El Heraldo posted the PDF of the report here.
SIEDE is designed to do the following tasks. First it scans the vote tally sheets, printing copies for each of the political parties, and then it digitally signs them and sends them via HTTPS to the Tribunal Supremo Electoral's (TSE) data center in Tegucigalpa over a cell phone network. Computers in the data center receive the scanned tally sheets and verify the digital signature, forwarding copies to the political parties and the international auditors, then analyze the internal consistency of the transmitted tally sheet. Next the data center computers transcribe the tally sheet using Optical Character Recognition software and verify the data on the tally sheet, monitoring it for inconsistencies. Finally SIEDE, in the TSE data center, accumulates and integrates the votes from this tally sheet with others already entered into the system, generating vote totals and sharing the results.
SIEDE is a combination of off-the-shelf hardware and software, some of it from vendors, some written for the TSE.
The hardware at each polling place consists of a laptop, wireless modem for the wireless network of CLARO or TIGO (two of the large phone companies in the country), and a multifunction ink-jet printer and scanner. Each polling place runs software which will digitally sign, then upload, the completed vote tallies for President, Congress, and Municipal office to an off-site data center in a hotel, set up by the Tribunal Supremo Electoral. The data center has systems that act as web servers to receive the signed tally sheet images over HTTPS, in a Microsoft SQL Server database to store the images and record information about their processing, and Readiris OCR software to read the numbers from the scanned forms for later validation and processing.
All of this commercial software is held together both in the polling station and the data center by automation code written by TSE programmers.
During the one month audit period, the OAS observers got to witness three tests of the SIEDE system by the TSE, each with increasing load. The audit was complete on November 20 with the release of the report.
Key findings are the following:
Now, there is much the TSE deserves credit for here. Building this kind of voting system in-house, from scratch, to international standards is admirable, and from the OAS checklist, many of the parts they completed they did well, and the OAS had few concerns about much of the completed code. But the TSE wrote no specifications detailing how the software should behave, and was slow to purchase the hardware and software on which to build the standardized infrastructure. That makes it difficult to say the say the system is doing what it should, since there are no specifications to check it against.
The OAS found the code for everything up to tallying the results and sharing them with the political parties to be up to international standards, and that each stage to that point provided correct and verifiable results to pass along to the next.
But that's where their praise stopped.
Translation? The code that counts the votes and accumulates the results and then shares them with the political parties, is incomplete, nor does what is there meet the international quality standards the OAS deems ordinary and proper for this kind of code.
To be eight days out from the election and not code complete is asking for trouble. The OAS indicating that changes to the existing code base still needed to be made before the election is also asking for trouble.
I managed enterprise level software projects of comparable complexity in a former career, and I can tell you you don't make these kinds of major, unproven, changes to a system in the last 8 days before you roll it out unless rolling it out as it is will be a certain disaster. Why? Because you're inviting things to go horribly wrong by making late changes, and they almost always do.
There is one last simulation scheduled for November 23, the day before the election, and it is supposed to be a full scale load test. If anything goes wrong, there won't really be any time to fix things.
Luckily the TSE has 30 days to declare the winner, just enough time to do a hand count of the ballots if necessary.
These conclusions were translated by the Honduran press into headlines like "The system to transmit the vote tallies can work well" and "The OAS discards [the possibility of] fraud in the elections in Honduras and the electoral entity [the TSE] asks for respect" and "The OAS certifies that the equipment to transmit the electoral results is trustworthy".
Not quite.
The report is an audit of the software that's going to be used to count votes for things like security, accuracy, transparency. El Heraldo posted the PDF of the report here.
SIEDE is designed to do the following tasks. First it scans the vote tally sheets, printing copies for each of the political parties, and then it digitally signs them and sends them via HTTPS to the Tribunal Supremo Electoral's (TSE) data center in Tegucigalpa over a cell phone network. Computers in the data center receive the scanned tally sheets and verify the digital signature, forwarding copies to the political parties and the international auditors, then analyze the internal consistency of the transmitted tally sheet. Next the data center computers transcribe the tally sheet using Optical Character Recognition software and verify the data on the tally sheet, monitoring it for inconsistencies. Finally SIEDE, in the TSE data center, accumulates and integrates the votes from this tally sheet with others already entered into the system, generating vote totals and sharing the results.
SIEDE is a combination of off-the-shelf hardware and software, some of it from vendors, some written for the TSE.
The hardware at each polling place consists of a laptop, wireless modem for the wireless network of CLARO or TIGO (two of the large phone companies in the country), and a multifunction ink-jet printer and scanner. Each polling place runs software which will digitally sign, then upload, the completed vote tallies for President, Congress, and Municipal office to an off-site data center in a hotel, set up by the Tribunal Supremo Electoral. The data center has systems that act as web servers to receive the signed tally sheet images over HTTPS, in a Microsoft SQL Server database to store the images and record information about their processing, and Readiris OCR software to read the numbers from the scanned forms for later validation and processing.
All of this commercial software is held together both in the polling station and the data center by automation code written by TSE programmers.
During the one month audit period, the OAS observers got to witness three tests of the SIEDE system by the TSE, each with increasing load. The audit was complete on November 20 with the release of the report.
Key findings are the following:
The findings refer, fundamentally, to the behavior of the system during the simulations, which were carried out without all of the functionality and with test data that was smaller than the defined objectives for this audit. For that reason, the conclusions refer to the behavior of the system as of the dates mentioned without a possibility to predict its behavior with the volumes of information and expected loads on election day...
In general terms, and under the technical functional conditions observed, the operational modules that bind the system together are functional, complying with the established parameters of the SIEDE process. But, because of the gaps in the load testing during the simulations and that the system must process on election day, the part that consolidates and integrates, and discloses the data is of special concern [since in each simulation] we saw poor performance in the systems that accumulate the results and schedule tasks. Because of this it is a priority to optimize the mechanisms used in the processing of the information and to finish the code to do the work of verification of the results.
Now, there is much the TSE deserves credit for here. Building this kind of voting system in-house, from scratch, to international standards is admirable, and from the OAS checklist, many of the parts they completed they did well, and the OAS had few concerns about much of the completed code. But the TSE wrote no specifications detailing how the software should behave, and was slow to purchase the hardware and software on which to build the standardized infrastructure. That makes it difficult to say the say the system is doing what it should, since there are no specifications to check it against.
The OAS found the code for everything up to tallying the results and sharing them with the political parties to be up to international standards, and that each stage to that point provided correct and verifiable results to pass along to the next.
But that's where their praise stopped.
In relation to the module that consolidates, integrates, and shares the results, the audit detected failures that gave evidence of a failure to follow international standards of quality required for this type of program. It is important to note that aspects like correction, trustworthiness, and efficiency have not been complied with in these modules up to the finalization of the simulations.
Translation? The code that counts the votes and accumulates the results and then shares them with the political parties, is incomplete, nor does what is there meet the international quality standards the OAS deems ordinary and proper for this kind of code.
To be eight days out from the election and not code complete is asking for trouble. The OAS indicating that changes to the existing code base still needed to be made before the election is also asking for trouble.
I managed enterprise level software projects of comparable complexity in a former career, and I can tell you you don't make these kinds of major, unproven, changes to a system in the last 8 days before you roll it out unless rolling it out as it is will be a certain disaster. Why? Because you're inviting things to go horribly wrong by making late changes, and they almost always do.
There is one last simulation scheduled for November 23, the day before the election, and it is supposed to be a full scale load test. If anything goes wrong, there won't really be any time to fix things.
Luckily the TSE has 30 days to declare the winner, just enough time to do a hand count of the ballots if necessary.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Making Sure? Votes Count
For the last few weeks of the Honduran election, no surveys of the electorate can be published. But really, the only poll that matters will take place this coming Sunday, November 24. According to the Tribunal Supremo Electoral, 5.3 million Hondurans are eligible to vote.
Throughout the country, people in five thousand election centers will place their ballots for president, congress, and municipal mayor in three separate ballot boxes.
What happens then? What ensures that the ballot cast is counted and reported accurately? How reliable should we expect the numbers to be? In part, what you think the answer is depends on how you assess the procedures set in place by the Tribunal Supremo Electoral.
Each individual ballot for president has a Mesa Electoral Receptora number, the name of the voting center, and the department printed on it. Each of these ballots also has a unique number, with the name of the municipio preprinted on it.
The Presidential Ballot looks like this:
Each Mesa Electoral Receptora has a custodian. In previous elections the churches, through the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church Association, supplied the custodians. Most of the custodians this time around are students from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras (UNAH).
Each Mesa Electoral Receptora has one representative, and an alternate, from each political party. Each has a president, secretary, watcher, and members, all appointed to office by the TSE. All procedural votes are by simple majority, with the president of the Mesa abstaining unless there is a tie.
The charge to the MER technical custodians is
Those tally sheets are key to linking the count made at the Mesa and the outcome the TSE reports.
A separate manual for each department of Honduras has detailed instructions including how to count and record the votes from each of the ballot boxes. Observers, both national and international, may be present but must not reveal any results nor advocate for any candidate. The members of each Mesa fill out and sign an opening form that records how many ballots they have for each office (in numbers and written out in words).
To prevent voters selling their vote, cell phones and cameras are newly banned from voting booths. The voter is given a ballot for the presidential vote, congress, and municipal mayoral election, signed on the back by members of the Mesa. The voter folds each of the three ballots in half to obscure their vote, then brings them back to the Mesa where members verify they have the required signatures on the back.
Counting of the votes begins with checking the ballot for the required signatures and stamp, then the voter's markings are evaluated. Each ballot has a photo of the candidate, the party flag, and a space to mark the vote. But a mark anywhere on the candidate or the flag counts, as long as most of the mark is in the space of a single candidate.
Vote counting is done in public. Anyone can watch, but must remain silent.
First the President takes an inventory of the leftover supplies, stamps each as "left over" and records the counts on the Accounting form. The president then hands the sealed ballot box to the Examiner who opens it and extracts a vote.
The examiner qualifies the vote as valid, null, or blank and indicates to which party (if valid) it belongs. It is shown to the members of the Mesa, then passed to the President, who ratifies it. The secretary records it on the appropriate tally sheet with a tick mark for the party, null, or blank.
The president sorts ballots into piles by party, null, or blank, then gives each pile to the Secretary who seals them in plastic bags and puts them back in the voting place briefcase. Once all the votes are counted, the Secretary fills out the vote count section for each candidate as well as tallying the number of citizens, and Mesa members, who voted. This, along with the annotation of the number of blank ballots received, plus those left over, finalizes the form. The numbers are then transferred to the Closing Tally form which is signed by the Mesa members.
Getting the vote tallies to the TSE in Tegucigalpa has been a point of potential weakness in the whole process. In 2009, the tallies were read over cell phones, and entered into the computer in Tegucigalpa based on the phoned-in counts. The results were, to be charitable, incredibly inaccurate.
This year, the TSE is trying a new approach, used successfully in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. Completed Closing Forms for president, congress, and the municipal election will be scanned, and sent to the TSE either through a wired internet connection or through a wireless modem across the cell phone network.
500 voting centers lack electricity or an internet connection, so those votes will not be counted until opened more than a week later in Tegucigalpa.
In addition to scanning and transmitting the Closing Form, each custodian will print out a copy for the representative of each political party, and for any member of the Mesa that desires a copy. Once sent, the original Closing Form will be stamped by the custodian with a stamp indicating it has been transmitted (all copies will be stamped).
The president of the Mesa will then aggregate all the oficial forms into an envelope to close out the polling place. All papers will be returned to the briefcase, sealed for return to the TSE.
In the past, the TSE then recounted every ballot box, and entered the data into a new computer file. The TSE has said it will not announce results the night of the election, only "trends". Meanwhile, Hagamos Democracía, an NGO that produced exit polling that was more accurate than the TSE in 2009, will be operating again this year.
A fairly fragile system for such a consequential election.
Throughout the country, people in five thousand election centers will place their ballots for president, congress, and municipal mayor in three separate ballot boxes.
What happens then? What ensures that the ballot cast is counted and reported accurately? How reliable should we expect the numbers to be? In part, what you think the answer is depends on how you assess the procedures set in place by the Tribunal Supremo Electoral.
Each individual ballot for president has a Mesa Electoral Receptora number, the name of the voting center, and the department printed on it. Each of these ballots also has a unique number, with the name of the municipio preprinted on it.
The Presidential Ballot looks like this:
Each Mesa Electoral Receptora has a custodian. In previous elections the churches, through the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church Association, supplied the custodians. Most of the custodians this time around are students from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras (UNAH).
Each Mesa Electoral Receptora has one representative, and an alternate, from each political party. Each has a president, secretary, watcher, and members, all appointed to office by the TSE. All procedural votes are by simple majority, with the president of the Mesa abstaining unless there is a tie.
The charge to the MER technical custodians is
- to make sure there is adequate access by voters from the starting hour to the ending hour of voting.
- to observe the rights of the citizens
- to maintain order in the voting centers
- to be yourself transparent and responsible, absent of any authoritarianism.
- to respect the popular will when counting the votes and inscribing the results on the tally sheet
- to return the voting boxes with the tally sheets to the TSE.
Those tally sheets are key to linking the count made at the Mesa and the outcome the TSE reports.
A separate manual for each department of Honduras has detailed instructions including how to count and record the votes from each of the ballot boxes. Observers, both national and international, may be present but must not reveal any results nor advocate for any candidate. The members of each Mesa fill out and sign an opening form that records how many ballots they have for each office (in numbers and written out in words).
To prevent voters selling their vote, cell phones and cameras are newly banned from voting booths. The voter is given a ballot for the presidential vote, congress, and municipal mayoral election, signed on the back by members of the Mesa. The voter folds each of the three ballots in half to obscure their vote, then brings them back to the Mesa where members verify they have the required signatures on the back.
Counting of the votes begins with checking the ballot for the required signatures and stamp, then the voter's markings are evaluated. Each ballot has a photo of the candidate, the party flag, and a space to mark the vote. But a mark anywhere on the candidate or the flag counts, as long as most of the mark is in the space of a single candidate.
Vote counting is done in public. Anyone can watch, but must remain silent.
First the President takes an inventory of the leftover supplies, stamps each as "left over" and records the counts on the Accounting form. The president then hands the sealed ballot box to the Examiner who opens it and extracts a vote.
The examiner qualifies the vote as valid, null, or blank and indicates to which party (if valid) it belongs. It is shown to the members of the Mesa, then passed to the President, who ratifies it. The secretary records it on the appropriate tally sheet with a tick mark for the party, null, or blank.
The president sorts ballots into piles by party, null, or blank, then gives each pile to the Secretary who seals them in plastic bags and puts them back in the voting place briefcase. Once all the votes are counted, the Secretary fills out the vote count section for each candidate as well as tallying the number of citizens, and Mesa members, who voted. This, along with the annotation of the number of blank ballots received, plus those left over, finalizes the form. The numbers are then transferred to the Closing Tally form which is signed by the Mesa members.
Getting the vote tallies to the TSE in Tegucigalpa has been a point of potential weakness in the whole process. In 2009, the tallies were read over cell phones, and entered into the computer in Tegucigalpa based on the phoned-in counts. The results were, to be charitable, incredibly inaccurate.
This year, the TSE is trying a new approach, used successfully in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. Completed Closing Forms for president, congress, and the municipal election will be scanned, and sent to the TSE either through a wired internet connection or through a wireless modem across the cell phone network.
500 voting centers lack electricity or an internet connection, so those votes will not be counted until opened more than a week later in Tegucigalpa.
In addition to scanning and transmitting the Closing Form, each custodian will print out a copy for the representative of each political party, and for any member of the Mesa that desires a copy. Once sent, the original Closing Form will be stamped by the custodian with a stamp indicating it has been transmitted (all copies will be stamped).
The president of the Mesa will then aggregate all the oficial forms into an envelope to close out the polling place. All papers will be returned to the briefcase, sealed for return to the TSE.
In the past, the TSE then recounted every ballot box, and entered the data into a new computer file. The TSE has said it will not announce results the night of the election, only "trends". Meanwhile, Hagamos Democracía, an NGO that produced exit polling that was more accurate than the TSE in 2009, will be operating again this year.
A fairly fragile system for such a consequential election.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Political Pragmatism?
It was surreal to read an Agence France-Presse interview with Adolfo Facussé, one of the vocal supporters of the coup against Manuel Zelaya Rosales in 2009, saying Xiomara Castro could represent real change in Honduras, whereas none of the other candidates does.
Facussé, who is president of the Asociación Nacional de Industriales (ANDI), said:
How exactly the nation needs to change is pretty clear: Facussé went on to characterize the Lobo Sosa government, and especially its economic policies, as a disaster. Of Juan Orlando Hernandez, the National Party candidate for President, Facussé said "he has the characteristics to become an autocratic president."
Aline Flores, president of the other leading business group in Honduras, Consejo Hondureño de la Empresa Privada (Cohep), made it clear she didn't agree with Facussé about LIBRE. She said:
Facussé did get support in his criticism of the Lobo Sosa government. Oscar Galeano, a former president of COHEP, said
Facussé said he was not afraid of leftist ideas, though he's not enchanted with Castro's call for a Constitutional Assembly:
That seems to fly in the face of Facussé's support for the 2009 coup, but he clearly thinks that political intervention made a point that will limit what even a LIBRE president does:
It is shocking to see a Honduran businessman call the government "idiotic". But increasing social inequality, impoverishing the populace, is exactly what the last two National Party presidencies have done.
A recent study by The Center for Economic Policy Research , "Honduras Since the Coup: Economic and Social Outcomes", authored by Jake Johnston and Stephan Lefebvre, points out that
Only three countries in Latin America have seen their GINI coefficient, a measure of how unequal the distribution of income is in the country, increase since 2009. The rest have seen decreases of 1 to 7 percent. Honduras had a 12.5% increase in its GINI coefficient, from .50 in 2009, to .59 in 2011, the latest year for which there are records. That's the greatest increase of any country in Latin America, and the highest absolute value for a GINI coefficient in Latin America.
In fact, since 2001, inequality has consistently increased under Nationalist governments, declining only during the four years of the Zelaya administration. Under Zelaya, Honduras had about the same level of economic inequality as Costa Rica in 2009.
And as the Honduran businessmen speaking out note, poverty is bad for business. The rich may get richer while the poor get poorer, but eventually, you run out of customers.
Facussé, who is president of the Asociación Nacional de Industriales (ANDI), said:
We have businessmen from all the parties. Libre has something that appeals to me and that is the promise of change. The country definitely needs to change.
How exactly the nation needs to change is pretty clear: Facussé went on to characterize the Lobo Sosa government, and especially its economic policies, as a disaster. Of Juan Orlando Hernandez, the National Party candidate for President, Facussé said "he has the characteristics to become an autocratic president."
Aline Flores, president of the other leading business group in Honduras, Consejo Hondureño de la Empresa Privada (Cohep), made it clear she didn't agree with Facussé about LIBRE. She said:
He (Facussé) has always had his own opinion and I respect him a lot, but we don't share some ideas.
Facussé did get support in his criticism of the Lobo Sosa government. Oscar Galeano, a former president of COHEP, said
Some businessmen will prefer the right, some the center, and others the left. What is certain is that Honduras cannot continue depending on irresponsible governments that don't promote investment and development, because (with Lobo), we have lost much time; we have a high rate of unemployment.
Facussé said he was not afraid of leftist ideas, though he's not enchanted with Castro's call for a Constitutional Assembly:
I'm not afraid of the ideas of the left, the intelligent left (....) they have not done badly in El Salvador; in Nicaragua the businessmen are content. We, without having a leftist government, have an idiotic government. For businessmen it is not good to have a populace dying of hunger, poor people.
That seems to fly in the face of Facussé's support for the 2009 coup, but he clearly thinks that political intervention made a point that will limit what even a LIBRE president does:
If Doña Xiomara is elected, Don Mel Zelaya will have the intelligence to manage things [the government] without confronting the rest of society.
It is shocking to see a Honduran businessman call the government "idiotic". But increasing social inequality, impoverishing the populace, is exactly what the last two National Party presidencies have done.
A recent study by The Center for Economic Policy Research , "Honduras Since the Coup: Economic and Social Outcomes", authored by Jake Johnston and Stephan Lefebvre, points out that
Economic inequality, which decreased for four consecutive years starting in 2006, began trending upward in 2010. Honduras now has the most unequal distribution of income in Latin America.
Only three countries in Latin America have seen their GINI coefficient, a measure of how unequal the distribution of income is in the country, increase since 2009. The rest have seen decreases of 1 to 7 percent. Honduras had a 12.5% increase in its GINI coefficient, from .50 in 2009, to .59 in 2011, the latest year for which there are records. That's the greatest increase of any country in Latin America, and the highest absolute value for a GINI coefficient in Latin America.
In fact, since 2001, inequality has consistently increased under Nationalist governments, declining only during the four years of the Zelaya administration. Under Zelaya, Honduras had about the same level of economic inequality as Costa Rica in 2009.
And as the Honduran businessmen speaking out note, poverty is bad for business. The rich may get richer while the poor get poorer, but eventually, you run out of customers.
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