Crying Fraud in Ecuador's Election

The Wall Street Journal has a piece on Guillermo Lasso's accusation of fraud in Sunday's presidential election in Ecuador. Especially coming from a conservative media outlet, the article does not reflect too well on Lasso's case.

Most problematic:

On Sunday, one of Mr. Lasso’s allies in his CREO coalition cited two other exit polls giving him the lead. However, one of the polls cited—by well-respected Informe Confidencial—was never conducted, said Santiago Nieto, the director of that polling firm. 

A private poll conducted by Informe Confidencial on Saturday showed Mr. Moreno leading with a 4.8% advantage over his opponent, said Mr. Nieto, adding that Mr. Lasso celebrated too early based on exit polls, which are often inaccurate. 

“I don’t think it’s correct to put the figures from a poll ahead of the official data,” he said in a telephone interview. Exit polls “are not trustworthy.”

Ouch! We already know that exit pools are hotly contested and should be used with extreme caution. If you want an example, just look at the controversy about the Latino vote in the 2016 presidential election. But we should also know that you should not base an argument on an exit poll that never actually occurred.

Also working against Lasso is that international observers did not detect fraud. The OAS, which is no mouthpiece of the left, has confirmed Lenín Moreno's victory. Further, the conservative governments of Argentina and Peru have already congratulated Moreno.