Inside Honduras' election chaos: Infighting, delays, and broken systems

Highlights:

• Nearly two weeks after Honduras' election, 15% of tally sheets remain unresolved
• Electoral body's delays and company's tech failures crippled the vote-counting process
• Politicization of electoral body fueled tensions in lead-up to 30 November vote

Weeks before Honduras' 30 November presidential election, a test run exposed deep flaws in the vote-counting system: only 36% of practice ballots were processed, according to electoral council member Marlon Ochoa. That warning proved prescient.

Now, nearly two weeks after the election, the presidential vote remains paralyzed with hundreds of thousands of ballots still uncounted, rival candidates trading fraud accusations, and an electoral system crippled by delays and dysfunction.

The chaos has plunged the country of 11 million into political limbo. Tensions are mounting, and confidence in the process is eroding.

The preliminary count shows Nasry Asfura of the conservative National Party only 40,000 votes ahead of Salvador Nasralla of the center-right Liberal Party. Nearly 15% of tally sheets - comprising hundreds of thousands of votes - show "inconsistencies" and have not been counted.

Nasralla has seized on the reporting problems to allege fraud while President Xiomara Castro of the leftist LIBRE Party denounced the process as an "electoral coup." US President Donald Trump, who has publicly endorsed Asfura, has also claimed fraud, without presenting evidence.

None of the major international observers, including the European Union and Organization of American States, have raised concerns of systematic fraud. Instead, a half-dozen experts told Reuters that infighting inside the electoral body caused critical delays in preparations and that both Honduras' political parties and outside actors, including Trump, have undermined confidence in the results themselves.

"This was a deliberate manufacturing of a low-quality electoral process," said Hector Corrales, a political analyst in Tegucigalpa. "The only thing that could have saved this election was a big margin of victory."

Electoral council delays and system failures

Honduras' electoral body, the CNE, is run by three officials, each representing one of the major political parties. The body is responsible for preparing, overseeing and validating the election.

One of its critical jobs was to contract a company to process the ballots. But in July, Ochoa of the LIBRE Party boycotted the CNE's meetings for the month, delaying the start of the bidding process, election observers told Reuters.

Ochoa did not respond to a request for comment.

Finally, on 30 August, the electoral body chose Grupo ASD, a Bogota-based company that has participated in local and national elections in Colombia.

Experts and election observers told Reuters that the company's systems were woefully unprepared for Honduras' electoral process – which has specific requirements aimed at preventing fraud – and said it didn't have enough time to prepare because of the CNE's delay.

"Their equipment didn't have enough capacity," said Carlos Hernandez, director of the Association for a More Just Society, a nonprofit in Tegucigalpa. "Three months for a company to prepare for an election this complicated is not enough."

Grupo ASD's machines struggled to scan the tally sheets at the polling stations and digitally transmit them to Tegucigalpa. The company has also paused vote counting - at least once for multiple days - to conduct maintenance since the election, prolonging the process.

Grupo ASD didn't respond to a request for comment.

"There is so much doubt, and there have been so many problems, there should be a full recount," said Laura Carlsen, a political analyst who was in Honduras as an election observer.

Domestic disputes and international interference

Ahead of November's vote, the election had already become highly politicized, with the political parties accusing each other of either manipulating the vote or undermining trust in the outcome.

The biggest such scandal erupted in October, when the attorney general opened an investigation into council member Cossette Lopez-Osorio of the National Party for allegedly discussing plans with a military officer to influence the election.

LIBRE presidential candidate Rixi Moncada told Reuters that the alleged conspiracy proved the election was "the most rigged in history." Moncada is trailing a distant third in the vote count.

Lopez-Osorio did not respond to a request for comment. The National Party has said the investigation was an effort to intimidate her.

As internal tensions grew, some political figures sought help abroad.

In November, former prosecutor Sandra Ponce and former Honduran Chief Supreme Court Justice Vilma Morales traveled to Geneva and Washington. Both from opposition parties, Ponce said they were concerned LIBRE was trying to sabotage the election.

Ponce said she was pleased when, on 25 November, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau expressed concern about "interference, intimidation, and political pressure" affecting CNE members.

Her enthusiasm, however, was quelled when, a day later, Trump publicly endorsed Asfura.

"He crossed a red line," Ponce told Reuters.

On 6 December, the ruling LIBRE Party petitioned Honduras' electoral body to nullify the vote because, in part, of interference from Washington.

For now, counting continues. On Saturday, the CNE is slated to begin a special manual vote count of the tally sheets that were flagged for having inconsistencies.

The CNE has until 30 December to validate the election results.