Responses to the Coup d'etat in Honduras on Sunday June 28, with special emphasis on producing English-language versions of commentaries by Honduran scholars and editorial writers and addressing the confusion encouraged by lack of basic knowledge about Honduras.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Mayoral Update San Pedro Sula

With 76.55 percent of the vote counted, here's how the mayoral race for San Pedro Sula stood late this afternoon. The numbers come from La Prensa's Minute by Minute column at 4:39 pm. With 911 of 1190 actas counted:

Candidate

number of votes

percent

Juan Carlos Zuniga

57,708

49.03

Tuky Bendaña

55,928

47.51

other/null

4,073

3.46

Totales

117,699

100.00


If this is 76.55% of the votes, it implies we should see about 153,754 votes in San Pedro Sula this year, or a turnout of about 30% of the (low ball) estimated 507,000 voters in San Pedro Sula.

10 comments:

Che Martín said...

Greetings.
I'd like to bring to your attention this article of "Tiempo":

http://www.tiempo.hn/secciones/politica/6701--consorcio-trata-de-explicar-por-que-sus-datos-son-diferentes-a-los-del-tse

...You could find it interesting...

Unknown said...

500,000 is too much. The city only had 513,753 people in 2001 according to the census. http://ccp.ucr.ac.cr/bvp/censos/honduras/2001/trifolio_dp.pdf

RNS said...

Yes, that was the population of the city in 2001, but its a rapidly growing population. A 2007 Division de Investigacion y Estadistica Municipal study found the population to be 813,839 according to a La Prensa article published January 17, 2008.

That 2007 number would yield a voting pool of 412,616 voters and indicate a turnout of 37.26%.

The current population should be higher than in 2007, with a corresponding lower turnout.

cadejo4 said...

According to La Prensa, 428,000 people were registered to vote in San Pedro Sula this year.

http://www.laprensahn.com/Pa%C3%ADs/Ediciones/2009/09/18/Noticias/428-000-votantes-tiene-San-Pedro-Sula-este-ano

If only 153,754 votes were cast, the participation rate would be 36%.

Just for reference, the number of registered voters for the 2005 election was 353,072 and the number of presidential ballots cast was 144,605 (136,435 valid), according to TSE data. That works out to 41% participation.

By the way, I think substantial attention should be focused on the failure of the TREP (Transmission of Preliminary Election Results) system Sunday night. That system was funded by USAID and it was specifically installed to improve electoral transparency. I believe its failure warrants an investigation by the U.S. Congress, since U.S. funds were used.

cadejo4 said...

I think we also have some indication of the TSE's strategy for comparing the turnout number with 2005. It has begun misrepresenting the actual turnout of 55.1% in the 2005 elections as 46%, as can be seen here at their website.

TITO said...

Aaron,

According to the TSE itself, the "padrón electoral" for San Pedro Sula in 2005 was 353,072 people.

http://www.tse.hn/jc/documentos/estadisticas_y_proce_elec/elecciones%202005/Presidente_2005.pdf (Page 6)


Moreover, the same TSE officially estimates the census for 2001 in 311,667 people.

http://www.tse.hn/jc/documentos/estadisticas_y_proce_elec/elecciones%202001/Presidente%202001.pdf (Page 4)


Now, this, by linear extrapolation, yields 394,072 people by 2009. That is 153,754 out of 394,072 gives 39% turnout.

"Torture numbers, and they tell you anything"

TITO said...

Aaron,

Again, I was looking very closely at the numbers in the link you provided. And it helps me show that there is evidence to reason out the Honduras Census is inflated for the whole country since way back as 1997.

Look at this graph computed using CEPAL figures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ojoindependiente/4154988482/sizes/o/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ojoindependiente/4154227045/sizes/o/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ojoindependiente/4154227243/sizes/o/

To bad for the TSE that their own cheating is working against them this time!

RNS said...

Che Martin, thanks for pointing out that article. I would have blogged about it but have been traveling for the last couple of days.

RNS said...

The TSE now claims that there are only 353,072 voters enrolled in San Pedro Sula. That would make turnout about 43.54%.

See the almost final numbers in a Tiempo article here:

http://www.tiempo.hn/secciones/el-pais/6787-juan-carlos-zuniga-es-el-alcalde-san-pedro-sula

RNS said...

I just noticed that the TSE numbers for SPS are in fact, the 2005 numbers. The idea that SPS hasn't grown in the last 4 years is simply not credible.