Page 87 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

Exhibit 22 reproduces the resolution adopted by the National Returns Board
on May 11. Exhibit 23 is the statement to the country made that same day by the
opposition parties, explaining ADO’s viewpoint in connection with the tallying of
returns on the National level.
Both documents will be studied in depth in the following section, where we
shall also analyze the Electoral Tribunal’s behavior following the date on which it
received the circuit tally sheets from the National Returns Board.

D. He who counts also elects – Part II

On May 14, the alternate chairman, the secretary and the recently appointed
third member of the National Returns Board, Pitti, Levy and Tejeira, respectively,
appeared before the Electoral Tribunal to file the 39 circuits tally sheets and the May
11 resolutions already mentioned in the previous section. The presiding justice of the
highest electoral body of the land, Ismael García, was not present at these proceedings.
He had stepped down several days before. Gadeloff and Fernández decided not to
participate any further in the by now obvious farce.

“The secretary delivered the tally sheets, attached
documents and recordings of the sessions…
Thereupon the presiding justice asked Levy to clarify
whether the claims made by the ADO parties in a
30

letter to his office (see exhibit 25) were true. ADO
claimed that only five circuit tally sheets had actually
been reviewed and that 34 others remained to be
inspected. In the presence of national and foreign

newsmen covering the proceedings, Levy
acknowledged that only five tally sheets had been
reviewed, while the remaining 34 had only received a
cursory reading. Quintero insisted three times (he

could not believe his ears) with Pitti and Levy but
their answers were the same in every instance: only
five tally sheets had been reviewed; the other 34 had
only been read”32.

Quintero then received the unusual resolution. And that was indeed the
regime’s strategy: to take the decision as to the winner away from the National Returns

30 La Prensa, May 15, 1984, page 1A.