Page 100 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

within the Electoral Tribunal’s own building. These were, without a
doubt, the coarsest and most transparent frauds of the entire process.

5. Lastly, the fraud perpetrated by the Electoral Tribunal itself, stealing
votes from ADO while reviewing the San Miguelito circuit returns.
This was done in the presence and with the participation of the
justices, who ruled to dismiss all challenges but, at the same time, to
exclude those voters that had been previously left out of circuit totals.

It could be argued that some of these frauds were the work of dishonest
officials and politicians, acting on their own although with the common goal of helping
Barletta, even if it were through unlawful means. However, such was not the case. The
fraudulent actions described so far were the result of a well-orchestrated strategy
designed before and after the elections.

It should be recalled that throughout the entire campaign, pro-government
parties had available to them all the material and personnel resources of the government
and the media and the support of electoral and civil authorities. All of this entailed, as
previously shown, numerous violations of the Electoral Code and the Constitution.
Despite these unfair advantages, truly objective and professional public opinion polls 43
conducted by the UNADE and the Defense Forces showed that Barletta would
not win the elections. It should also be recalled that the country was going through its
worst economic crisis in 30 years and that, to make things even worse, these were the
first elections following 16 years of military rule, all of which helps explain the
overwhelming anti-government leaning of the electorate.
It would be useful to make a pause at this point and see what happens in the
democratic world when elections are held during periods of economic crisis:

43
As part of the UNADE advertising campaign, the results of three spurious opinion polls were
published in succession; each showed Barletta the winner by an ever-widening margin. All three polls
received prominent attention in pro-government media; the last predicted Barletta to win by 50,000
votes. It is known that these “polls” were prepared under the direct supervision of the Defense Forces,
which then sent the “results” to pro-government newspapers.