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Original article: Petro lleva a la justicia la elección de De la Espriella: presenta demanda de nulidad por manipulación algorítmica del voto

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has filed a lawsuit with the Council of State challenging the presidential election of far-right candidate Abelardo De La Espriella.

The legal action, announced on Monday through his account on social media platform X, aims to invalidate the elections held on June 21 and nullify the credentials awarded by the National Electoral Council (CNE) to the «Defensores de la Patria» candidate, who reportedly won against the representative of the Historical Pact, Iván Cepeda, by a mere 0.96 percentage points.

Petro described this legal initiative as a form of «popular communication,» noting that the technical jargon will be translated into explanatory videos. This lawsuit represents the latest chapter in a political crisis that has escalated since the elections. The complaint not only questions the legitimacy of the electoral process but also presents to the highest administrative court what the president claims are strong evidences of electoral fraud orchestrated through advanced technological means.

Support for the lawsuit is based on a group called «digital witnesses,» composed of approximately 70,000 citizens who, according to the president, tracked meta-data from the vote-counting software revealing «algorithmic manipulation of the actual votes» cast by the populace. This network of citizen surveillance allegedly detected irregularities in the digital traces left during the results processing, indicating systemic interference in the public will expressed at the polls.

New Scrutiny and Verification of Irregular Polling Stations

A central demand from the progressive leader is that a new recount, judicial audit, or technical verification be ordered for the tables, areas, polling stations, municipalities, or departments affected by unverifiable data, unjustified discrepancies, or lack of documented correspondence.

Additionally, he requests that the technical and administrative actions related to the counting model and documentation publication be provided, building upon the electoral acts that form the basis and reflect the implementation of a processing model, publication, authentication, identification, integrity, and document traceability different from that used in the 2022 presidential elections.

Another requirement is an order for the National Civil Registry and the National Electoral Council to exhibit logs, internal hashes, publication traces, minutes, file versions, and technical documents that support the correspondence, authenticity, and integrity of the published E14 forms, which record the vote count at each polling station and allow for the verification of official results.

According to Petro, the legal action should also mandate a judicial inspection with expert support on the systems for generating, scanning, processing, publishing, and republishing forms and election scrutiny minutes.

He further establishes that in case insufficient impact for total nullification is demonstrated, measures for cleansing, recounting, exclusion, or correction of the affected verifiable polling stations should be adopted, «without prejudice to the judicial acknowledgment of the autonomous defect of structural unverifiability.»

New Counting of Votes from Colombians Abroad

The lawsuit notably highlights the request for a new count of the votes cast abroad during the electoral runoff. This request is significant given that De La Espriella secured a lead of just 251,854 votes over Iván Cepeda in the runoff. Petro argues that the difference could have been influenced by the anomalies detected in the processing of votes from Colombians residing in other countries.

In addition to requesting the recount, the legal action aims to annul the CNE resolution declaring De La Espriella the winner, as well as the credentials that affirm him as the elected president.

The announcement of the lawsuit is not an isolated incident, as the progressive leader has been reporting irregularities and «evidences of electoral fraud through algorithmic means» and prohibited foreign financing during the election campaign and after the polls.

Petro attributed De La Espriella’s victory, who is set to assume the presidency of Colombia on August 7, to manipulation via «algorithms from California» developed by «private intelligence companies from Israel», stating that both Colombian and U.S. justice systems will have access to the evidence since, he claims, the crimes were committed on U.S. soil.

«The real winner of the popular vote was Iván Cepeda, Abelardo’s victory was achieved through algorithms from California created by private intelligence companies from Israel,» he denounced on X-

Following the filing of the lawsuit with the Council of State, the political crisis now shifts to the judicial arena, where the court must assess the evidence presented by the president and determine the appropriate actions.

La entrada Petro Takes Legal Action Against De La Espriella’s Election: Seeks Nullification Due to Algorithmic Vote Manipulation se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.