The attorney for the Colorado Añetete movement, Cecilia Pérez, reiterated on Tuesday, May 19, that the call for an audit of the voting machines, held on May 8, was nothing more than a presentation on how the equipment works. According to Pérez, the meeting was called by the Party Electoral Tribunal (TEP) of the National Republican Association (ANR) and conducted by the Superior Electoral Justice Tribunal (TSJE), but the act recorded as a “software and hardware audit” did not fulfill its promise.
“The title of the minutes said it was a software and hardware audit. We had to leave a note in the minutes stating that what was done was not an audit, it was a presentation on how the machines worked,” Pérez said in an interview. The former Minister of Justice stated that the observation was handwritten in the minutes of the meeting, held at the party headquarters.
Pérez also questioned the lack of reaction from the TEP regarding the failure to comply with the electoral calendar. “No one complained. Now we complain and are accused of wanting to disrupt the electoral calendar, which is not true,” she said. She recalled that the audit scheduled for February was never carried out, and that the movement was not invited to any stage.
The attorney pointed out that the very statement from the Honor Colorado movement, which criticized the dissident, ends up supporting the request for an audit. “If they say they will monitor the audit, it is because they are also not satisfied. Honor Colorado is acknowledging that the audit was not done,” she stated.
Pérez ruled out that the dissident seeks to postpone the internal elections, but argued that the pending audits should be carried out “in parallel or however, but they must be done.” She emphasized that the current situation only arose after the questions from Colorado Añetete. “It was not a natural or institutional process,” she concluded.
The director of the TSJE Electoral Processes Unit, Carlos María Ljubetic, stated that it is not possible to suspend the elections and that there is still no resolution on the request from the movements.