Mexican election officials recounted votes from more than half the polling booths from last week's presidential and congressional elections in response to claims of fraud, Reuters reported Wednesday. Leftist runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador demanded a new tally, alleging vote-buying and coercion by Enrique Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Pena Nieto has denied the coercion allegations, but some observers said the election had not been fair. "It was perhaps the biggest operation of vote-buying and coercion in the country's history," said Eduardo Huchim of the Civic Alliance, a U.N.-funded group. Lopez Obrador asked for a recount of every vote, but just over half the polling booths met the conditions set out by a 2007 electoral law stipulating that a recount can only be requested at a station where there is a gap of less than 1 percentage point between the leading candidates.
