Miguel Lifschitz was declared the governor-elect for Santa Fe province.
Miguel Lifschitz, of the Frente Progresista Cívico y Social (FPCyS), was confirmed as governor-elect today following a recount of votes from the provincial election on 14th June.
The provincial electoral tribunal reported the definitive results today, showing Lifschitz winning with 584,557 votes, just 1,776 votes ahead of PRO candidate Miguel Del Sel (582,781)
In a historic election results, just 25,582 votes separated the winner with third place Omar Perotti, of the Frente para la Victoria (FpV) party, who got 558,975 votes.
The recount had been ordered after Del Sel contested the initial results, which gave Lifschitz a winning margin of just 2,128 votes. The PRO candidate reported irregularities in the count, which had also excluded the results of more than 300 voting centres due to error.
Parties now have 24 hours to make claims regarding the counting process. PRO has requested the electoral tribunal to allow “over 3,000 policemen” to vote, who were allegedly unable to do so on election day. They have also requested that all boxes of votes be reopened to complete a full recount, something which has already been rejected by local courts.
“Unfortunately, the 70% of people from Santa Fe who did not vote for the governor-elect will be left with the doubt as to who won the 2015 election,” said provincial deputy for PRO Federico Angelini. “I’m not saying it was done with bad intentions, but there were data entry errors, human errors, which made it worthwhile reviewing the whole process.”
Elections in Santa Fe this year have been unusually close and controversial. During the primary elections that took place back in April of this year, approximately 10% of the votes were found to be uncounted, after the authorities had claimed that there had been a full count.
In that case, Del Sel emerged as the candidate with the most votes, narrowly ahead of Lifschitz.
The post Santa Fe: Lifschitz Declared Governor-Elect After Recount appeared first on The Argentina Independent.