US embassy cable - 03GUATEMALA2413

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 GUATEMALA 002413 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, KDEM, PINR, GT 
SUBJECT: ANTI-FRAUD MEASURES FOR GUATEMALAN ELECTIONS 
 
REF: BOYNTON-HAMILTON EMAIL 9/10/03 
 
1.  Summary.  This message provides information about 
procedures to prevent electoral fraud in response to 
questions raised at the September 4 Policy Coordinating 
Committee meeting on Guatemala.  We are encouraged by the 
measures that electoral authorities and institutions are 
taking to reduce possibilities for fraud, but will continue 
to monitor this subject vigilantly through the November 9 and 
December 28 elections.  End Summary. 
 
Q: With 100 mesas being added, especially in rural 
areas/outside Guatemala City, have the international 
observers taken that into account in their coverage of 
election day? 
A. Yes; the OAS election monitoring team is aware that there 
will be extra voting tables and is working closely with the 
Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) on coverage.  The actual 
number of additional tables remains to be determined (may be 
more or less than 100), as the number will be based on the 
final approved version of the voter registration list 
("padron electoral"), which is still being verified. 
 
Q: Security of the voting card; ability to manipulate or 
reproduce them; how will voter ID's be validated? 
 
A. The national identity document required to register to 
vote, known as the "cedula," is a multi-page booklet, one of 
whose pages is reserved for voter registration.  When the 
owner is registered, that page is stamped with a voter 
registration number that is checked against the registry 
maintained by the TSE. 
 
Numerous municipalities are authorized to issue cedulas and 
some have been credibly accused of selling cedulas to illegal 
immigrants.  The Consular section sees many of them in 
connection with visa applicants.  After careful review of the 
situation, however, we are confident that sufficient 
safeguards are in place for the following reasons: 
 
-- The use of indelible ink effectively prevents voters from 
voting more than once, as it penetrates the skin and takes 
several days to wear off.  False cedulas are therefore useful 
only to people who would otherwise not be able to vote, such 
as foreigners, members of the police and military, convicted 
felons, or underage people.  Police and military together 
constitute only 50,000 possible votes--not enough to matter 
at the national level even if every single one voted and then 
was somehow able to hide the inky finger.  Underage people 
and foreigners would be easily detected if they tried to vote 
in numbers large enough to affect the outcome. 
 
-- As part of the registration validation process, the TSE 
checks the registry against lists provided by the military, 
police, judiciary, and municipalities, removing the names of 
ineligible or deceased voters.  Although the TSE is not able 
to investigate every registration, it focuses on newly 
registered voters, especially if the voter has not recently 
come of age. 
 
-- Anyone who intends to use a false cedula to vote needed to 
have registered to vote before the August 9 deadline.  Since 
then, TSE officials have been verifying the rolls against the 
civil registries of births (which are books, with 
chronologically entered handwritten entries) maintained by 
municipalities.  In order to successfully register a 
fraudulent cedula with the TSE, the cedula must match an 
entry at least 18 years old in the civil registry of some 
municipality.  Additionally, the entry cannot belong to 
someone who has already registered to vote or the TSE 
computers will detect the match.  OAS Observer Mission Chief 
Valentin Paniagua and the TSE have independently concluded 
that the growth of the voter registry is in line with 
population growth.  In other words, there was no explosion of 
newly registered voters at the national level. 
 
-- TSE officials have detected and investigated unusual 
growth rates in voter rolls at the municipal level (such as 
in Villa Nueva, a suburb of the Capital), but so far all the 
investigations have unearthed reasonable explanations and no 
signs of serious fraud. 
 
Taken together, these safeguards significantly raise the 
effort required to register to vote fraudulently and reduce 
the likelihood that fraud can be perpetrated on a massive 
scale. 
 
Q: Validation and review of civic education efforts to assure 
voters of the secrecy of their vote on election day? 
 
A.  A large-scale campaign of TV and radio spots in 
indigenous languages as well as numerous full-page ads in all 
the major newspapers is well underway.  Additionally, the 
largest newspaper in circulation, Nuestro Diario, has 
launched its own get-out-the-vote campaign, also using full 
page announcements and ads. 
 
HAMILTON