The Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones (TSE) confirmed the conclusion of the manual vote count of the Feb 2. presidential elections. The TSE said that there will not be a manual count of legislator ballots, save for in races were there were disputes in the results.
The last two polling stations to be counted manual was number 6455 in Germany and 6515 in Australia.
Luis Antonio Sobrado, president of the TSE, reminded that an elections ban on public institutions begins Monday, Feb 17.
The elections tribunal is now readying for the April 6 run-off vote, with the voting ballots going to the print this week.
The ballot will have just two names, that of Luis Guillermo Solís of the PAC, which will occupy the left box and that of Johnny Araya of the PAC, on the right.
Solís won the Feb. 2 elections by less than a 1% over Araya, but short of the 40% required for a candidate to become president.
This is the second time Costa Ricans will go to the polls in a run-off election, the first time was in 2002 in a race between the PUSC’s candidate, Abel Pacheco and the PLN’s Rolando Araya, brother of Johnny Araya. Pacheco won the second round, governing from 2002-2006.
0hat amount represents more than 70 percent of the polling stations from the 81 municipalities of Costa Rica’s seven provinces, the citizens of which should attend a second round on April 6th to decide who will be the president for the 2014-2018 period.
On Monday, the TSE will announce the final results of the manual tally of ballots, something that was carried out because the difference between candidates with highest number of votes, Luis Guillermo Solis (Accion Ciudadana party, PAC) and Jonhnny Araya (National Liberation Party, PLN), was fewer than two percent.
Neither could manage the 40 percent of votes needed to win the first round.
