In accordance with the COFIPE (the Spanish acronym for the Federal Code of Electoral Procedures and Institutions), the Official Count began on Wednesday July 5, 2006. The sealed ballot packages together with their signed actas de escrutinio y cómputo (official tally sheets) were collected by the District's Electoral Council. Each tally sheet was examined for possible errors or alterations; Council members from any party are allowed to raise certain objections, and under a specified set of circumstances packages could be opened and examined; for example, the package could be opened and recounted in the case of an illegible tally sheet. The District Electoral Council would then certify the totals from each package and polling place, and remit the results to the IFE.
The process took approximately 30 hours of continuous uninterrupted work. The IFE made public the results as they were being received and tabulated from all 300 of the country's Electoral Councils, one per congressional district. The results were tabulated live; an early lead by López Obrador dwindled slowly until Calderón overtook him in the early hours of Thursday morning. Unlike the PREP, the Official Count tallied votes in a more organized manner. Information received from the District Councils was added to the running count in the order of the district number, as they arrived to the office. The Councils themselves examined the electoral packages in numerical order. Returns from several northern states which had heavily favored the PAN according to the PREP were in particular slow to arrive; the delay was at least partially attributable to double checking of the tally sheets. Under Mexican Law, any political party may ask for the double-check, and raise objections. The campaign coordinator for Calderón blamed the delay on dilatory tactics by the PRD representatives in those districts.
The final vote count reported on July 6 showed that Calderón obtained 35.89% (15,000,284 votes), while López Obrador received 35.31% (14,756,350 votes). The difference between the two was 243,934 votes (or 0.58%).
Read more about this topic: Mexican General Election 2006 Controversies, Elections and Results
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