Page 19 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

government material and human resources in support of Barletta's candidacy, and the
coercion applied to ensure that civil servants did not go over to the opposition. An

especially illuminating study of the Panamanian electoral system again, much to be

appreciated by the foreign reader closes this first chapter. It shows how the
government stacked the entire electoral machine with its own creatures making the

Electoral Tribunal and the National and District Returns Boards essential accessories
to the fraud.

Chapter II:
Records numerous instances of tampering with voter registration lists,

including the massive purging of opposition sympathizers from computerized records
and even the old-fashioned but still effective stealing and stuffing of ballot boxes.

Special attention is paid to the illegal activities conducted by the government

to ensure the Indian vote for Barletta. Perhaps one of the most interesting sections of
the book is its analysis of the techniques pro-government parties used to steal the

presidency from Arias as soon as preliminary returns indicated that they had lost.
Results from precincts where Arias had won by a wide margin were indiscriminately

challenged. This meant that these votes could not be taken into consideration until
officially certified.

But although the Electoral Tribunal eventually dismissed all challenges on the

grounds of insufficient merit, it inexplicably failed to count the votes, thus providing
a big boost to Barletta's candidacy. This incident was symptomatic of the entire vote-

counting process. Even though the National Returns Board had reviewed only five of
the 39 circuit tally sheets, the Electoral Court certified their figures and proclaimed

Barletta the winner by the "narrow margin" of 1,713 votes.

Chapter III:

Presents several sets of results based on figures from official precinct results
showing that even after allowing for some of UNADE's frauds, Arnulfo Arias was the

winner by a margin greater than that subsequently claimed by Barletta. To support his