The OAS accusation of electoral fraud against Evo Morales is bullshit — and now we have the data to prove it

The day after the Bolivian election, the Organization of American States suggested the result was fraudulent — then took months to provide any proof. Last month, it finally released its data — and researchers at the Center for Economic and Policy Research found a basic coding error that destroys the OAS’s case against Morales.

by David Rosnick 

Part 5 - Breakthrough

For weeks following the release of the OAS report, researchers had tried unsuccessfully to replicate these findings using publicly available data. The OAS ignored requests for its data and explanation of its methods, but there were two red flags suggesting that its analysis suffered from serious errors. 

 

First, the OAS concluded its audit with the results of an “internal analysis” that directly contradicted the graphs. That table implied that Morales performed better — not worse — over the penultimate 5 percent than the last 5. Second, the table above it broke down results by select departments (equivalent to states in the United States). None of these numbers seemed to make sense.

This was not a simple difference between public and official, internal data. On May 25, I finally received data direct from the TSE; again, Cochabamba was counted entirely before the 95 percent mark.

The breakthrough came only on August 19. That was when Nooruddin posted his data set to a Harvard repository. Sorting tally sheets by this progress variable, everything looks fine to start with. But the transition from the October 20 to October 21 stands out.

Shortly before Nooruddin claims the count reaches 11 percent, the time stamps jump from 11:59 p.m. to 01:00 a.m. Was it possible there was an hour break? No. There were tally sheets time-stamped at 12:00 a.m. on the 21st, but they were far down the list — just past the 61 percent mark, immediately between those time-stamped 11:59 p.m. and the tally sheets time-stamped 12:00 p.m.

It was clear what Nooruddin had done. His time stamps were formatted as strings — letters and numbers; when he sorted his tally sheets, he did so alphabetically and not chronologically. Nooruddin had each day starting at 01:00 a.m., proceeding to 01:00 p.m., 01:01 a.m., and so forth until 12:59 a.m. and finally concluding at 12:59 p.m.

The OAS’s claims against the legitimacy of the election results originally centered on what it considered to be an inexplicable change in the trend of the votes over time. But Nooruddin’s analyses reflect no real-world understanding of the order in which tally sheets were counted. His “first 95 percent” included tally sheets as late as 10:55 p.m. on October 22, but his “last 5 percent” included tally sheets as early as 12:19 a.m. — hours earlier. Sorting tally sheets chronologically, Nooruddin’s progress variable is all over the place.

Source, links, data:

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/09/oas-evo-morales-bolivia-coup-fraud-cepr

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