Peruvian candidate Sánchez to seek annulment of overseas votes

Leftist presidential candidate Roberto Sánchez announced Saturday he will seek to annul the votes cast by Peruvians abroad, a move he believes would secure him victory in the close presidential runoff. Sánchez is currently trailing right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori as the vote count nears completion.

Sánchez's announcement follows the electoral authorities' rejection of an earlier request to nullify results from more than 1,700 polling stations. With 99.64% of votes tallied, Fujimori holds a narrow lead of 50.11% to Sánchez's 49.88%, a difference of just over 41,000 votes. However, Sánchez's campaign claims that if overseas votes are excluded, the percentages would reverse, giving him a 50.11% to 49.89% advantage.

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That vote of Peruvians abroad, which is worth identically to Peruvians in our territory, has been affected by this regulatory change.

The candidate, representing the party of former President Pedro Castillo, cited alleged irregularities in the handling of ballot tallies. He specifically pointed to a change in procedure where results were no longer transmitted digitally but required physical ballots to be sent to Lima for counting. Sánchez argued this change, allegedly at the request of the Foreign Ministry, compromised the integrity of the overseas vote.

Sánchez's campaign claims that some ballot boxes traveled in diplomatic pouches without proper security, citing the case of votes from Argentina arriving late. He contends that these issues have severely affected the security and legal certainty of the election. International election observation missions, however, have not identified significant irregularities or signs of fraud related to this procedural change. Sánchez's party had not previously criticized the decision to await physical ballots before this point in the race.

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We believe they have affected the chain of custody, the security of the vote and the ballot.