33 Indeed, on June 27, 2012, the four presidential candidates convened at the headquarters of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), which convoked the meeting in which they signed a “Pact of Civility”. In this pact, they all acknowledged that the vote was free and secret and claimed an “energetic rejection of the use of public resources and social programs to coerce the vote”. In spite of that pact, as of July 2 there was still an infinite number of anomalies we feel duty bound to record. No, the Pact was not violated by us. On the contrary, we are the ones who are making its abuses public. In addition to the chain of fraud already described, there were many acts of voter pressure and coercion by the Priistas. These include telephone calls and cellphone messages through “call centers.” Which took the form of a “dirty war” principally against our candidate: slanderous texts and messages to frighten those who would vote for him. In addition, “brigades” of Priistas were place in the voting stations to monitor their operation. One of their tactics was to distribute f cellphones (in our suit we include several of them) so the voters could photograph their ballots and thus prove for whom they had voted. Another was novel coercive tactic observed in the voting stations: so-called “little falcons,” boys who mixed with the voters to verify that their vote was for the PRI.
There were also many ballots marked in favor of Peña Nieto put into the voting boxes, some even without being folded—which meant they were in the boxes before the voting started—and others marked before being printed (both cases documented in the State of Veracruz). Furthermore, two days before the elections, ballots were found in Tabasco, as well as in other states. And even so, our challenge is being denounced as “antidemocratic” and “uncivilized.” We see it as a rebellion in the face of unmitigated fraud. It was enough to go out into the street to see what was happening in the nation between November 2011 and July 2012 and much earlier, to recognize the truth of what we are claiming. There is even talk of appealing to the “Pact” between the presidential candidates in order to further tie our hands.