The latest election news indicates that a winner will be obvious, but not declared when the TSE finishes the manual recount today, probably around noon local time.

Last night at the 8 pm report, Oscar Arias took a commanding - for this race - lead of 10 275 votes with 95.93 per cent of the polling stations scrutinized.

TSE Chief magistrate Antonio Sobrado re-iterated that 507 appeals remain to be resolved, which could possibly affect the outcome. In addition, party representatives at the count have 3 days to file appeals, which given Monday’s and Tuesday’s results are likely to occur. Once the process is complete the TSE will officially announce a winner.

After 13 days of counting until their fingers are numb, TSE officials will finally finish the official vote count for the presidential race on Wednesday. Well before the 30 day time limit mandated by law.

On Monday, TSE staff finished the Guanacaste count and started the Puntarenas count which will conclude today. The Limon province will be last and is projected to begin late in the afternoon today. 717 polling stations are left for Puntarenas and Limon.

According to magistrate Óscar Fonseca, president of the TSE, “everything has gone normally, we are about to close this chapter. As nothing unforeseen occurs”. The judge clarified that the winner may not be apparent, even after the hand count is finished.

Party representatives have three days to challenge results from a polling station once it has been officially scrutinized. PAC has already presented 517 appeals, of which the first 200 have been resolved (rejected). Most appeals are related to the electoral registry or missing certificates from particular stations.

Fonseca also informed the public of the results from table 5925 of Los Angeles de Pococí. At this table no votes were registered for PUSC, PUN, or UPC. Magistrates opened the envelopes where only ballots for Legislators and city council positions were supposed to be placed. They found the Presidential ballots for these parties. The case will be investigated officially and the votes from table will be re-examined.
Meanwhile, the maxim that every vote counts is truer than ever as Arias won yesterday’s count by a landslide of 17,108 votes. The new totals are PAC - 604,097 and PLN - 603,348 votes. A difference of only 749 votes. 88.36 % of the polling stations have been scrutinized, a total of 5446.

Even though the vote count is not final, the state’s re-imbursement of parties for campaign costs has been defined according to the manual count and preliminary reports for legislator and city council members.

The state must pay out 13.900 Billion colones campaign funding, this is 0.19 per cent of the Gross National Product. This money is distributed according to the votes received by each party. A party must either elect a legislator, or receive at least 4% of the vote for president in order to get a piece of the pie.

PLN and PAC will have a right to 5.9 billion colones each. Parties must present their expenses to the TSE in order to get the funds. PLN will present 4.3 billion colones in expenditures, while PAC will only ask for 1.6 billion colones back.

The Libertarian Movement has a right to ¢ 1.350 Billion, PASE, (¢121 million), PUN, (¢319 million), Frente Amplio, (¢84 million), Restauración Nacional (¢150 million) and PUSC (¢841 million).

According to Alfredo Ortuño, of PLN, the campaign cost ¢5.550 billion. (11 million US Dollars) Of this ¢4.300 billion will be given back by the state and ¢1.250 billion will be covered by donations.

PAC limited itself to ¢2.400 billion before the campaign, but actually spent only ¢1.600 billion, said Óscar Fernández, treasurer.

Álvaro Alpízar, of the Libertarian Movement, said that ¢800 million was spent, so they will save the state over ¢500 million. The party’s initial charter did not permit it to accept state funds, but this provision was overturned during the party convention, causing a rift among some members.

Roberto Jiménez, PUSC treasurer, explained that they calculate that the state funds “will cover 58 per cent of the investment”. The PUSC campaign cost about ¢870 million.

While the presidential race is still as close as ever, the legislature is the scene of another kind of race: that of the "advisors" to line up jobs for the next 4 years.  According to Antonio Ayales, executive director of the Assembly, 355 consultants are skating on thin ICE. "Every four years this situation presents itself.  Depending upon their experience, more or less half will be gone."

The most worried consultants are those linked to the PUSC party, which will go from 19 seats to 4 seats in the new Legislature. Of the 112 consultants only 23 will remain.  Each legislator normally has between 5 and 6 advisors on staff.   The reverse is true in the PLN offices, where the party will up its seats from 15 to 25, a total of 145 possible collaborators.  Here the new representatives are looking for staff members, some experienced consultants have had visits from 2 or 3 legislators at once.

In the PAC, the code of ethics allows 2 personal consultants and 1 assistant.  For this reason, on April 30th all of the current staff will be dismissed.  Although some may be rehired by the new representatives.

On Saturday the TSE finished counting by hand the Heredia polling stations and these were the last in the Metropolitan Area.  Guanacaste, Puntarenas and Limon are the areas with tables that have yet to be scrutinized.

To date, Arias has received 556,757 votes and Solis 574,612. This represents 4695 polling stations (80.56% of the total)  17,855 is the lead that Solis will take into the provinces, which are expected to be won by Arias. 

During the week the TSE was able to reach a 600 daily polling station count, which is the normal rate for the hand count from past elections, according to magistrate Luis Antonio Sobrado.  The party representatives either got bored, or began to trust more in the judgement of TSE staff who hand count the votes.  If the pace holds, the country may have a President by Wednesday of next week.  This weeks counts have shown PAC candidate Otton Solís with a consistent, slight lead which now stands at 19,527 votes. 66.43 % of the polls have been scrutinized (4049 stations).

473,644 Votes for PAC
454,117 Votes for PLN.

Despite early claims of victory by some PLN officials, and veiled calls for capitulation from Oscar Arias, the ballot counting continues to be close. No winner is expected to be clear until the last tables are counted.  In yesterday’s count, Solís won by 9,894 votes, making the overall difference 4,485 in favor of Solís. 

37.96% of the tables have been counted (2340 polling stations).  The cumulative total is 261,233 for Arias and 265,718 for Solís.

While both presidential candidates talk confidently of victory and continue to "touch base" with supporters as they polish their plans for governing, the recount goes on.  PAC has presented over 70 complaints with the TSE. They contend that the recount is going "very fast" and that some rulings are inconsistent.

According to Rodrigo Alberto Carazo, PAC representative in the count "we have decided to present motions to anull, because in our opinion the vote count has not been of high enough quality. "

The cumulative count  has Arias with 200,123 votes and Solís with 194,774. 

In an ironic twist, and probably an appropriate one according to those who abstained from voting, the 7.7 million pieces of paper that are related to this election will eventually be recycled.  While today they are the subject of strong discussion, will be scrutinized one by one, and are kept under lock and key; tomorrow holds a different fate.

According to Jaime Madriz, Electoral Comptroller, once the ballots have served their purpose and have been kept safe for 6 or 7 months, the TSE will offer them to recycling companies.  The highest bidder will get them and convert them to diverse products.  Since the TSE cannot receive money, the auction is carried out in the form of a barter.  For this reason the TSE doesn’t spend any money on toilet paper, napkins or paper towels, they get it back in the trade.

So now you have another great reason to buy "natural" toilet paper! 

Although the TSE claims it is inaccurate to do so, Oscar Arias unofficially leads the voting by over 15,000 after the 712 polling stations that were not included in Monday’s final preliminary tally have been counted by hand. Arias received a total of 70,681 votes while 58,083 were for Solís.  The tally represents 11,56 % of the total.

According to PLN officialis, adding the 12,598 votes in the manual tally to the 3,250 vote advantage that Arias had in the electronically reported votes gives Arias a clear advantage of 15,626 votes.

However, the TSE maintained that the race was too close to call and that the manual counting is a seperate process from the electronic reporting.  "You can’t compare apples to oranges", said Luis Antonio Sobrado, a TSE judge. " The TSE cannot, nor should it, make official any electoral victory in the presidential race. Until the manual scrutiny is complete. "

Both candidates continued to call for patience and emphasized respect for the TSE and their willingness to wait for the official results.  Some campaign like sniping did occur though, related to Arias’ remarks of yesterday.

"To say now that we have won is untrue. I am enthusiastic, because the TSE gave us a solid majority. But they said to wait until the last vote is counted, and they are correct. It would be very presumptous of either candidate to say that we have won, it is not true"

Meanwhile, Ottón Solís said he would not refer to the PLN calculations.  "In developed countries, a candidate does not pressure another to recognize or not a defeat, nor do they pressure the entity in charge of the elections to declare a winner. The important thing is that the count is correct and I am optomistic about the results. "