Abstract

CRESPO, José Antonio. The Process of Counting and Counting: Omissions of the Electoral Authorities. Polít. gob [online]. 2009, vol.16, n.spe2, pp.201-224. ISSN 1665-2037.

This article reviews the counting process and tallying the electoral law stipulates as faculty and the obligation of the Federal Electoral Institute, to remedy the arithmetical unstableness that under certain conditions could tarnish the clarity in the final verdict in the presidential election in 2006 in Mexico, as well as the powers of purification later on the part of the Electoral Tribunal of the Judiciary of the Federation. It is reviewed until where these institutions met with the aim of purification and revision of the packages and electoral records to allow full certainty about the will of the voters issued at the polls, and if there was sufficient completeness from the conditions specified in the law, and from the conditions that proved to be very closed between first and second places in the presidential contest. It evaluates how far the mistakes of computation, determined from the criteria used by the judges of the TEPJF, were unable or could affect the certainty of the result, in which case it would offend the guiding principle of certainty, given in article 41 of the Constitution as a prerequisite for validating the election.

Keywords : polling and counting; arithmetical and errors of computation; purification and opening of packages; completeness of the electoral authorities; electoral uncertainty and opacity.