JURIST - Paper Chase: Mexico presidential candidate takes election fraud claim to court

[JURIST] Mexican leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador [campaign website, in Spanish; Wikipedia profile] has asked Mexico's Federal Electoral Court [official website, in Spanish] to order a manual recount [JURIST report] of returns from the July 2 presidential election, which conservative Felipe Calderon [campaign website, in Spanish; Wikipedia profile] won by just 0.6 percent. Lopez Obrador turned over to the court nine boxes of evidence of alleged fraud and dirty campaign practices relating to the election, claiming that some polling stations counted more votes than registered voters, the ruling party helped finance Calderon's campaign, and that a software program skewed initial vote-count reports. The court must declare a winner by September 6.

On Sunday, Lopez Obrador told reporters that he lost the election due to voter fraud, and announced plans to contest the election [JURIST reports] in court. Mexican election laws [PDF text, in Spanish] permit a manual recount only if the ballot packages have been unsealed or if the initial tallies are faulty. Last week, the Federal Electoral Institute [official website, in Spanish] validated Calderon's victory. AP has more.

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