An MIT study finds no statistical evidence of fraud in Bolivia's elections

MORE INFORMATION

• The final OAS report confirms “malicious manipulation” in the elections in Bolivia

• Luis Almagro: “In Bolivia there was a coup d'etat when Evo Morales committed electoral fraud”

A study by electoral integrity specialists Jack Williams and John Curiel of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab has concluded that “there is no statistical evidence of fraud” in the presidential elections last October in Bolivia, which gave former president Evo as winner Morales. Due to military pressures, the Bolivian leader left office. Scholars rate the conclusions of the report published by the Organization of American States (OAS) last November as "deeply flawed," as they wrote in an article published Thursday in The Washington Post and remember that the Latin American country is preparing for new ones. elections on May 3 "after the coup d'etat backed by the Army" on November 10.

The regional agency document, which reported burned minutes, redirection of votes to hidden servers and duplicate names, accused that when the count was resumed after a suspension of the Preliminary Results Transmission System (TREP), they showed a "highly" trend. unlikely "in favor of the candidate of the Movement for Socialism (MAS). However, research by MIT specialists has revealed that there does not appear to be a "statistically significant" difference in the margin between the results before and after the transmission stop.

"Instead, it is very likely that Morales has exceeded the margin of 10 percentage points in the first round," they say in the Post . According to the Bolivian Constitution, a candidate wins presidential elections when he obtains an absolute majority or 40% of the votes, with at least a 10 percentage point advantage over the second candidate. If this is not the case, a second round is made.

The preliminary counting of the votes stopped with about 84% of the votes counted, when Morales had an advantage of 7.87 percentage points, according to the study. When counting resumed, Morales' margin exceeded the second most voted candidate, former president Carlos Mesa, by more than 10 points. The audit report commissioned by the OAS - with the consent of Bolivia - determined that "an irregularity on that scale is a determining factor in the outcome" in favor of Morales. In addition, that "manipulations" and "irregularities" prevented knowing with certainty the margin between Morales and Mesa. "What is possible to say is that there have been a series of malicious operations aimed at altering the will expressed at the polls," he concluded.

“Was there a discontinuity between the votes counted before and after the unofficial count? Of course, discontinuities can be evidence of manipulation, ”said Williams and Curiel, but based only on“ evidence of statistics ”they have not found the“ anomalies ”that the OAS accuses in the voter trend. In the study commissioned by the Center for Economic and Political Research (CEPR) they found a correlation of 0.946 between Morales' margin between the results before and after the suspension of the vote count. This correlation discredits the report of the regional body, which dated that the last 5% of the votes presented a different trend from the previous 95%. "The statistical analysis carried out reveals that Evo Morales' first-round victory was statistically unlikely."

When the result was revealed with 95% of the minutes scrutinized, the OAS made a statement revealing its concern about "the change in trend." Once all the votes were counted, the result gave Morales an advantage of 10.6% over Mesa. Protests in the street, the shadow of irregularities and pressure from the Armed Forces, forced the Bolivian president to leave office. The Bolivian leader published on Thursday the article of the Post stating that the OAS, its president Luis Almagro and the commission responsible for auditing the results of the elections "owe many explanations to the Bolivian people and the entire world." Almagro has said that "the only coup d'etat in Bolivia" happened when Morales "committed electoral fraud."