Paraguay
The Senate was left without a quorum and blocked a request to audit voting machines
The session collapsed amid debate over a resolution seeking to ask the TSJE for two machines for a technical review. The withdrawal of lawmakers came after a call from the president of the Upper House, Basilio Núñez.
The Senate voided, for lack of quorum, consideration of a draft resolution that proposed asking the Superior Court of Electoral Justice for two voting machines for a technical audit, according to ABC Color.
The initiative had been introduced by Senator Ever Villalba, 20 days before the election. During the debate, the lawmaker said there were irregularities and showed records from internal elections of the ANR and the PLRA with alleged cases of fraud, in polling stations where zero votes appeared, even without recording the mandatory ballots of polling station members, always according to ABC Color.
The Cartista Colorado caucus rejected the proposal. The leader of Honor Colorado, Natalicio Chase, argued that the verification stage had already ended within the electoral timetable and said the Senate has no authority to force an autonomous body to hand over equipment. In the same vein, Patrick Kemper accused the opposition of sowing distrust and Derlis Maidana described the proposal as a maneuver to discredit the process, ABC Color reported.
The president of the Senate, Basilio “Bachi” Núñez, described the proposal as an attack on democracy on the eve of the election and asked Colorado lawmakers and allies to leave the chamber, which ended up deactivating the session for lack of quorum, according to ABC Color.
There were also differences within the opposition. Eduardo Nakayama questioned Villalba’s proposal and called for not confusing possible failures or manipulations with other phenomena unrelated to the technical operation of the machines. He also said that no general conclusion can be drawn from isolated cases and urged citizens to vote and to report any irregularity during the count.
For her part, Esperanza Martínez also called on people to take part in the Asunción elections and denounced alleged irregularities in 577 polling stations in the capital, where, she said, vote loads would have occurred. Rafael Filizzola said there is no conclusive evidence of computer fraud, although he supported the request, and noted that the vote-loading problem is due to bad practices by polling station members and not the software. Celeste Amarilla backed the criticism, while Yolanda Paredes said citizens do not trust the electronic system, ABC Color added.
In another part of the day, Senator Lizarella Valiente defended her husband, former Asunción mayor Óscar “Nenecho” Rodríguez, against accusations over alleged management irregularities. According to ABC Color, she also had a clash with Celeste Amarilla in the chamber.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not conduct its own reporting on this event.
