Honduras is still waiting for the final presidential election count, over a week after the vote

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — More than a week after Hondurans voted to elect a new president, results continue to trickle in as complaints grow about the slow process and allegations of irregularities by the three top candidates.

The election to pick a new president and Congress was held on Nov. 30 and as of Monday, 88% of the ballots have been counted.

The two leading candidates are Nasry Asfura, of the conservative National Party, who has 40.21% of the votes and Salvador Nasralla, of the also conservative Liberal Party, who has 39.49%.

Rixi Moncada, who ran for the ruling social democrat LIBRE, or Liberty and Re-foundation party, is in third place with 19.28% of the votes.

Moncada on Sunday raised questions about the tally and said the elections should be annulled.

“LIBRE does not recognize the elections held under the interference and coercion of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and the allied oligarchy that have attacked the Honduran people with an ongoing electoral coup,” Moncada said.

Days before the election, U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed Asfura and announced his pardon of ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández, who belongs to the same party and last year was sentenced to 45 years in a U.S. prison for helping move tons of cocaine.

Results interrupted by technical issues

The website Honduran electoral authorities set up to share vote tallies with the public has crashed several times since going online, leaving Hondurans with uncertainty about the process.

Eduardo Fuentes, election director of the National Electoral Council, asked Hondurans for patience and on Monday told The Associated Press that the vote is being done in the correct way and according to the law, which gives the council 30 days to complete the count.

He blamed the website’s technical problems on the Colombian company that manages it.

The vote count is done in stages

Fuentes said that following the election, the vote-counting process occurs in several stages, each requiring varying amounts of time.

He said that after voting concludes, all polling place tally sheets must be scanned and sent digitally to the council's central collection center to begin processing and tabulating results. Preliminary results are then released on election night through the Preliminary Electoral Results Transmission, or TREP, website.

The council then addresses the tally sheets that were scanned but could not be transmitted to the council due to a bad internet connection. After that, officials then process the tally sheets that could neither be scanned nor sent digitally because of lack of electricity and internet connection.

Those sheets must then be physically sent to the council. This is where the vote count is at the current moment, Fuentes said.

“The tally sheets are extracted from all boxes, scanned, and incorporated to the official count. We’re at that stage now, which began,” Sunday, Fuentes added.

That process is very important — it will process 7,776 tally sheets with issues, of which 2,294 are for a presidential candidate and could make a significant difference between the two top candidates, who are now separated by about 20,000 votes. The other 5,482 tally sheets were for congress people and mayors.

If after this stage, the margin between Nasralla and Asfura narrows, a special recount will decide the election.

A recount could be necessary

Fuentes said that during the special recount all tally sheets with inconsistencies, errors, or those that were not sent back because of electricity or internet problems or both will be processed.

“We will determine which ballot boxes go to the special recount, and those will undergo a new count with a new tally sheet issued,” he said.

“Once the special recount is completed, the general count concludes and a declaration of results is issued,” he said.

The time required for this entire process will depend on the number of tally sheets needing correction but could take seven to eight days,” he said.

If there is a special recount, the CNE will establish 150 Special Verification Boards, each comprised of one representative from each party, one from the electoral council, an international observer and a representative from an auditing company. Additionally, prosecutors from the Special Electoral Crimes Prosecutor’s Office will be requested to attend, and cameras will always be present.

The recount will be conducted continuously, 24 hours a day, with two 12-hour shifts, Fuentes said.