Proof that Keiko Fujimori’s team claims they have to challenge 200,000 votes in Peru

Keiko Fujimori’s team showed examples of election records that she said should be struck down and that, in this case, they could modify the results of the vote in Peru, currently favorable to the candidate Pedro Castillo.

The left leader has an advantage of 71,000 votes with 99.13% of the minutes counted. However, The Fuerza Popular campaign does not seek to reverse the result with the 0.87% of tables remaining (which is statistically very difficult), but with the contestation of the votes already counted, corresponding especially to the areas where Castillo has obtained an overwhelming advantage.

The number of complaints is unprecedented. In the tight 2016 elections that Fujimori lost to Pedro Pablo Kuczynski by 41,000 votes, there were protests in 29 polling stations (apart from complaints made on election day). In 2011, when Fujimori lost to Ollanta Humala, only two objections were lodged with the electoral justice.

And is several of Lima’s most prestigious legal firms have made their teams available to investigate acts in rural areas and look for inconsistencies, as several lawyers involved confirmed, before Wednesday’s deadline for filing the claims expired. Participation is legal, as long as the professional contribution is declared in the campaign accounts.

The 802 minutes presented are divided into five categories.

-Fake signatures

This is the most frequent reason among the allegations presented by Fujimori. In 503 minutes, with a total of 125 thousand votes, the campaign team assured that the signatures of the documents are different from those which appear in the public archives of certain members of the council.

Among the leaked examples are two people from the Amazonas department with similar but abbreviated signatures compared to the original signature that appears in their documents. In the case of Yoel Alcántara Sarmiento (the second signature in the image), the citizen recorded a video to show that he had signed the documents and assured that he had participated impartially throughout the day, in the presence of representatives of both parties.

The jury must decide if these are acceptable differences corresponding to the same person or if they are changes suggesting that it was impersonation.

-Falification of results

Popular Force presented 132 minutes which considered suspect because the party obtained 0 or 1 vote among all the votes.

The cases are statistically possible, since the minutes correspond to areas in which Castillo obtained more than 80% of the votes in the whole region. For example, there were minutes in Miami (Florida) in which the reverse scenario occurred, and Castillo received no votes in favor.

It is unlikely that this case will receive the approval of juries, as the The electoral law indicates that all complaints of this nature must be resolved at the table, with the authorized presence of representatives of each party. It would be suspicious that a case of this type is detected in an area with a reverse tendency, but the doctrine of “the act kills the vote” makes it impossible to revise the cédulas, which are destroyed after local control.

– Board members with the same two last names

Peruvian electoral law prohibits two direct family members from being members of the same table, who are chosen by lot. But according to Fuerza Popular’s claim, this is what would have happened in 65 cases nationwide, since the signatories bear the two identical surnames.

The chances that they have the same last name are high because the tables are listed in alphabetical order.

As in the previous case, the general provision is that these situations must be contested by the representatives present and the request would not succeed a posteriori. Beyond the challenges of the lottery and pre-voting, this can happen because when a poll member is absent, the first person in line to vote is interviewed. Due to the pandemic, in the first round there were many problems with the conformation of the tables and several cases were detected in which the replacements were family members, without registering any complaints about this.

At Monday’s conference, Keiko Fujimori presented a case from Puno, with three members with the same first name, Catacora. However, this is a very common case in the southern region and the three have subsequently denied being related and asked for an apology.

-Invalidation due to erroneous sums, erroneous or missing data

Finally, 102 minutes contested by Fuerza Popular would have records with inconsistent data, such as more valid votes than voters, or empty boxes.

In the example published by Fuerza Popular, the minutes wrongly recorded as blank ballots all the ballots corresponding to people who did not attend the vote.

The jury must define in each case whether there are glaring errors which justify the file being eliminated from the calculation. However, it is possible that these were insignificant errors like the one in the image (in which neither party is favored), since the minutes underwent two revisions at the time of its calculation.

Strangely, the example act is positive for Fujimori, so his campaign would lose 200 votes if this particular cancellation request were successful.

The review process, unprecedented in its quantity, could take several weeks. Luis Galarreta, candidate for Fujimori’s vice-presidency, claimed that the electoral delegates of Peru Libre – Castillo’s party – committed “table fraud”.

However, ONPE denies the possibility of fraud, as does the Organization of American States (OAS) Election Observation Mission, which called the process normal and transparent.

If Fujimori does not win the election, he will have to continue legal proceedings in which he is accused of money laundering and obstruction of justice. The prosecution, which required more than 30 years in prison for the former member, on Thursday asked for a new preventive detention order.

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