Page 67 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

Organization Head, Félix Gómez stated, as reported by La Prensa, that “… the
Defense Force had not supplied any names and that he only had nine names filed by
24
the Penonomé Hospital”.
This notwithstanding, the Electoral Tribunal drew up a “Special Listing” with
more than 17,000 names, including approximately 8,000 national guardsmen, and
handed it to PDC officials on May 5, one day before the election.

Two different things took place here. The first is the obvious violation of the
Electoral Code by the Defense Forces and the Electoral Tribunal itself as regards the
dates on which they were required to produce the “Special Listing”. The second, far
more serious considering its potential for generating fraudulent votes, was that it made
it possible for at least 8,000 national guardsmen and 9,000 other officials to vote twice
under no supervision or control by opposition parties.

Finally, and to support the accusations made in the previous paragraphs, we
shall mention the astonishing but incontrovertible fact that Maximiliano Gordon,
Electoral Tribunal Systems Director, i.e., –the person responsible for the computers
that generated the official voter registration rolls– was under arrest for at least two or
three hours on the night of May 4 for having refused to comply with an order from the
Defense Forces. Who knows in what ways Defense Forces operatives on duty at the
Electoral Tribunal tampered with the computers during Gordon’s absence?

Was it then that the “cybernetic” fraud was perpetrated or was it when the
factitious lists were prepared? These tools of fraud were voter lists for precincts located
in areas where the regime knew it was unpopular, such as Circuit 4-4 in the Guaymi
Indian area. These factitious listings included supporters of the regime who would
otherwise have been unable to vote –since their names did not appear in the Electoral
Registry– and excluded known opposition supporters.

Likely, we shall never know what was done with the computers during
Gordon’s absence. But we do know that the office of the Electoral Tribunal Systems
Director was under the direct control of the Defense Forces on the evening of May 4
and not exactly for repair purposes. Moreover, Gordon was not allowed to return to his
office for several days following the elections.

And Barletta would later say that he won fair and square!

24 La Prensa, April 30, 1984, page 1A.