Ecuador celebrated the second round for the election of president and vice president, since the election of February 19 failed to give any candidate the 40% needed for a victory in the first round. At that time the ruling-party candidates only obtained 39.3 6% while the Lasso-Páez formula stood at 28.09%. In consequence, on Sunday, April 2, 12,816,698 Ecuadorians were called to vote again. On this occasion, voter participation was about 78.82%.

As was the case since the beginning of the campaign, the second round was characterized by accusations of fraud made by the opposition and the incitement to violence, as a forewarning that they would not recognize the result in case of an victory of that benefits the governmental candidate.  This, in spite of the fact that the National Electoral Council (CNE) has provided a variety of mechanisms to guarantee the transparency of the process: at the moment of installation, 97% of the polling stations, included delegates from both political organizations who were previously trained, 89% of them attended the training in person, while 11% were trained virtually through a web platform.

The role of international observers was also crucial for the transparency of the electoral process. Unasur, in their Saturday April 1 report, pointed out the impossibility of fraud. Meanwhile, the international observation mission of the Association of World Election Bodies (A-Web) highlighted that the recommendations made to the CNE regarding the first round were included to improve the transparency during the ballot process. That organization also dismissed the possibility of fraud [1].

After 5 PM, as soon as the polling stations closed, the first exit poll that was publicized was that of CEDATOS, according to which Lasso had 53.02% of the votes compared to 46.98% votes for Lenin Moreno. These data initially gave a supposed victory to CREO-SUMA, news that was rapidly spread by private mainstream media and on social networks. However, the exit poll of Perfiles de Opinión indicated a contrary result, giving an advantage to the ruling-party team with 52.2%, while Lasso was situated at 47.8%.

The quick count, made public about two hours after the end of the ballot, undertaken by the Escuela Politécnica Nacional (EPN), and authorized by the CNE, gave Lenin Moreno the victory with 51.15%, considering a margin of error of 0.73%. The official data of the National Electoral Council show that, with 99.65% of the votes counted, Moreno reached 51.16% of the votes while Lasso reached 48.84%.

President and vice-president, general results; 99.65% of votes counted

Source: CNE

In spite of this, in a predictable scenario, Guillermo Lasso complained of fraud and announced that he would challenge the results. The vice-presidential candidate, Andrés Páez called for a vigil in the streets and proposed calling for a national strike. As has already happened in other recent electoral processes (Argentina, Venezuela) the Ecuadorian opposition used the agenda of fraud as a mechanism of political pressure to create confusion and encourage their grassroots to mobilize, even when they did not have the basis to denounce irregularities in the electoral process. It should be recalled that, despite the outcry in the media after the first round, up to now no accusation of fraud has been presented to the CNE.

Below we present the comparison between the official results, the exit poll surveys made known immediately after the closing of the polling stations (Cedatos and Perfiles de Opinión) and the quick counts made by the NGO Participación Ciudadana (Citizen Participation) and the Escuela Politécnica National (EPN). The results released by the CNE were close to those revealed by the quick count of the mathematical team of the EPN and the exit poll of Perfiles de Opinión. On the night of the election, Participación Ciudadana said they could not publicly announce the results of their quick count, declaring a "technical tie", estimating that the difference between the candidates was about 0.6 points[2]. The Cedatos Company (Gallup), openly presented a manipulated result of their exit poll survey, giving an advantage of 6 points for the candidate Guillermo Lasso. The margin of error was declared to be 2.2%.

The following table shows the voting by province in both the first and second round. Lenin Moreno concentrates his support in the coastal region, while Lasso’s is in Amazonia, except for Sucumbíos, and the central sierra. Nevertheless, the case of Pichincha[3] stands out, since Moreno won there with 35.29% in the first round, while Lasso won with 52.22% in the second round. This is also the case of Cañar where Moreno won in the first round with 34.37% and in the second round Lasso won with 51.85% of the votes.

The international electoral constituencies also indicated new results: in Latin America and the Caribbean, Moreno won the first round with 41.37 % but in the second round, Lasso won with 57.84%. In the United States and Canada, the same thing happened: Moreno won the first round with 38.93 % but in the second-round Lasso won with 56.70 %.

Comparison of voting by province: electoral weight, first round, second round

(2) Second round: 88, 40 % of the ballots counted

(3) Second round: 95, 65 % of the ballots counted

(4) Second round: 97, 91 % of the ballots counted

(5) Second round: 90 % of the ballots counted

Regarding the electoral distribution, in Ecuador, 3 constituencies concentrated 50% of the electoral roll, while the other 50% is distributed among the 21 other provinces and the 3 overseas constituencies. The constituencies where Lasso won (13 provinces in the national territory and two overseas constituencies), concentrated 38% of the electoral roll while the constituencies where the MPAIS candidate won make up 62% of the electoral roll.

Considering the votes obtained by each of the candidates, the above map shows the territorial distribution of the vote, the Moreno-Glas team in green and Lasso-Páez in blue. CREO-SUMA won in 13 provinces and PAIS won in 11.

- María Florencia Pagliarone (@Floripa_2012) and Gisela Brito (@giselasbrito) / Researchers with CELAG.