Democracy on Trial: Unravelling Allegations of Fraud in Honduras’ Elections

Honduras’ 2025 presidential election has spiralled into turmoil, its credibility teetering on the brink amid narrow margins, unexplained reporting gaps, and repeated system glitches that have sparked widespread allegations of manipulation. Tensions surged further when U.S. President Donald Trump threw his support behind right-wing candidate Nasry Asfura, injecting a shock of international influence into an already volatile race. The chaos intensified when Marlon Ochoa, a councillor on the National Electoral Council (CNE), blew the whistle on what he called serious irregularities, from suspected tampering with vote transmissions to coordinated efforts aimed at tilting the results.

Marlon Ochoa, a member of the National Electoral Council of Honduras, denounced serious irregularities following the general elections on November 30, highlighting biometric failures, the withholding of records, and the lack of public access to the results. pic.twitter.com/3y3IdmyLcW

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) December 3, 2025

Fueling the unrest further, Trump’s decision to grant a sweeping presidential pardon to former Honduran leader Juan Orlando Hernández, abruptly releasing him from a 45-year U.S. sentence on drug-trafficking convictions just days before the vote, has stirred outrage and heightened suspicions of foreign meddling at a critical moment.

With the leading candidates separated by only a few hundred votes, the electoral authority under intense scrutiny, and a newly freed former president reentering the political landscape under extraordinary circumstances, Honduras finds itself at a pivotal crossroads, its democratic future, institutional trust, and geopolitical orientation hanging precariously in the balance.

Image: Marlon Ochoa reported that as of December 2nd, “not a single physical tally sheet returned from the polling stations has been processed. (Source: EFE)

Telesur reports on Election Irregularities in Honduras…

Electoral Coup: CNE Councillor Denounces Serious Irregularities in Honduras

Councilor Marlon Ochoa warns that failures in the biometric system and the withholding of 16,708 tally sheets compromise the transparency and integrity of the preliminary results in the November 30 elections.

Marlon Ochoa, a member of Honduras’ National Electoral Council (CNE), denounced serious irregularities on Tuesday following the general elections held on November 30. He highlighted biometric failures, the withholding of 16,708 tally sheets, the complete lack of processing of physical tally sheets, and the lack of public access to the results.

Ochoa emphasized that the information provided by the TREP (Preliminary Electoral Results Transmission) system “lacks certainty and consistency,” something that Honduran citizens “have been able to verify.” He stated that the country is facing an election with “terrible technological results, profound inconsistencies, and irregularities,” evidenced by the lack of public access to the preliminary results on December 2.

During a session of the National Electoral Council (CNE) that extended until 3:00 AM this Tuesday, the company ASD verbally reported that 16,708 closing tally sheets had been withheld and not released to the public. These are broken down as follows: 3,880 presidential tally sheets, 6,387 for members of parliament, and 6,441 for municipal corporations.

The council member explained in a social media post that, across the country’s 7,669 transmission centers, the Preliminary Results Transmission System (TREP) has experienced inconsistencies in assigning votes. He illustrated that, when transcribing a tally sheet, the system can display the image of one polling station but assign the votes to a different one without the transcriber noticing.

Desde cada centro de transmisión (7,669 en todo el país) hubo casos en que el sistema TREP aplica los votos de un candidato a otro: al momento de transcribir los resultados del acta de cierre, se proyecta la imagen de una casilla, pero la transcripción de los votos se aplica a… pic.twitter.com/Wfvd8Obfr1

— Marlon (@MarlonOchoaHN) December 2, 2025

In addition, the results publication website has been down, and there has been no official explanation for the outage, despite requests for information from the companies involved.

On the other hand, Ochoa opposed the decision, made by a majority in the National Electoral Council (CNE), to grant privileged access to the results dissemination rooms only to media outlets and political parties starting at 7:00 AM. The council member insists that the results dissemination website should be activated for the entire population, in accordance with the law and the approved guidelines.

Furthermore, he criticized the fact that as of 1:15 PM (local time) on December 2nd, none of the physical closing tally sheets returned from the polling stations had been processed, which he described as a “highly irregular act” that sows “doubts and uncertainty” about electoral transparency.

Rixi Moncada denounces “electoral scheme” with inflated tally sheets

The presidential candidate for the LIBRE party, Rixi Moncada, denounced on Monday night an “electoral scheme” that allowed for the falsification of results with inflated tally sheets after the elimination of biometric validation in the elections.

Moncada presented a compelling technical analysis, highlighting the responsibility of the two-party system in an electoral fraud scheme. The candidate revealed that the “elimination of biometric verification of tally sheets was approved” by the National Electoral Council (CNE) “the night before the elections.” This controversial decision, according to Moncada, “enables the inclusion of inflated tally sheets, especially at the presidential level.”

#ENVIDEO | El Partido Libre impugnará los resultados electorales en Honduras. Su candidata Rixi Moncada denuncia un fraude masivo ejecutado por el CNE. pic.twitter.com/YO0SFL5CGY

— teleSUR TV (@teleSURtv) December 2, 2025

Moncada’s technical team has identified 2,859 tally sheets without biometric verification, representing 25.35 percent of the total. These tally sheets, with an average of 217 votes each, present extreme cases with up to 100 additional votes beyond the legitimate ones.

The National Party accounts for 1,588 of these tally sheets, totaling 326,285 irregular votes, while the Liberal Party has 1,041 tally sheets without biometric verification, equivalent to 217,193 irregular votes.

Moncada stated: “We are going to demand during this 30-day period of the final general count that these tally sheets be reviewed, and we are going to make use of legal resources.”

See more news from Telesur

READ MORE SOUTH AMERICA NEWS AT: 21st CENTURY WIRE SOUTH AMERICA FILES

SUPPORT OUR INDEPENDENT MEDIA PLATFORM – BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV

VISIT OUR TELEGRAM CHANNEL

21st Century Wire is an alternative news agency designed to enlighten, inform and educate readers about world events which are not always covered in the mainstream media.

Source: https://21stcenturywire.com/2025/12/03/democracy-on-trial-unraveling-allegations-of-fraud-in-honduras-elections/