MEXICO CITY – Leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador planned to send hundreds of pages of purported evidence of fraud Sunday to a court he hoped would overturn his conservative rival’s razor-thin preliminary victory.
Lopez Obrador said his lawyers would give the Federal Electoral Court evidence of fraud, including computerized manipulation of the results. The legal appeal would seek not to annul the July 2 election, but to force authorities to conduct a manual recount of all 41 million ballots.
“This was a very irregular election, and we are asking that they count vote by vote to legitimize the president elect,” Gerardo Fernandez, a spokesman for Lopez Obrador’s Democratic Revolution Party, said outside the tribunal Sunday night as he waited for lawyers to arrive. Fernandez said lawyers were held up by making copies of the 800 pages of allegations.
“We won’t recognize Calderon’s triumph unless they legitimize the election,” he said.
Election officials said Thursday that Felipe Calderon beat Lopez Obrador by less than 244,000 votes in the July 2 election – or a margin of just 0.6 percent.
But Lopez Obrador contends some of his votes weren’t counted or were voided without reason. His claims also include allegations that President Vicente Fox used government funds to support Calderon.
Fox has denied interfering in the elections.
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