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.

Costa Rica’s Paternity law, passed in 2003, has resulted in an increase every year of DNA based paternity testing.

Edna Meléndez, head of the DNA lab, said that in 2005 there were 1.600 DNA tests and confirmed that 82 per cent were positive. This means that nearly 20% of the mothers did not know who the father was or lied to the Civil Registry about the identity of the father.

Under the law, the unwed mother declares at birth who the father of the child is. In cases where the father may not recognize the child as his, the civil registry will investigate. They notify the father who has 10 working days to accept or deny paternity. If he does not answer the registry will assume that he is the father and proceed with registering the birth of the child. If the father reports to the registry that he is not the father, then the Registry will give an appoint to the father, mother and child the DNA testing laboratory. If the named father does not appear at the appointment, then the Registry will again assume paternity.
The same paternity law increased the father’s responsibilities for
child support and the ability of the public institutions to enforce support. Every year the total of DNA tests has risen, according to officials due to more awareness of the law.

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.