Honduras' leftist ruling Libertad y Refundación (Libre) party has formally petitioned the National Electoral Council (CNE) to annul vote counts from all 19,167 polling stations in the presidential race, citing electoral violations and a compromised results transmission system.

The petition, detailed in an official document released by Libre, bases its demand on violations of electoral norms and abundant failures in the Preliminary Election Results Transmission System (TREP), which "suffered an operational disaster, adulterating popular will".

The filing states irregularities encompass both preliminary and final counts, requesting the CNE order a rerun of the presidential election at all indicated polling stations within 10 days of any favourable resolution.

Electoral results have remained frozen since December 5 with only 88% of ballots tallied, despite CNE president Ana Paola Hall announcing two days later the "immediate" resumption of counting paralysed by "technical problems".

The preliminary count shows Nasry 'Tito' Asfura, the conservative National party presidential candidate publicly backed by US President Donald Trump, leading with 1,132,321 votes (40.19%), a narrow advantage over Salvador Nasralla, the centre-right Liberal party candidate, who has 1,112,570 votes (39.49%). Libre candidate Rixi Moncada trails in third with 543,675 votes (19.30%).

The credibility of these figures came under further scrutiny on December 7, when the CNE confirmed the system responsible for reporting election results had been breached. During a press conference, Marlon Ochoa, the Libre party representative on the three-member council, described a cybersecurity breach potentially undermining ballot credibility from the November 30 elections.

According to Ochoa, the TREP source code had been altered, indicating someone had accessed and tampered with the software.

"I asked the CNE technicians if any of them could confirm with certainty that the source code of the system sealed on November 30 had not been modified, and the response was silence. None of them could confirm that the source code had not been altered," he said.

Ochoa characterised the election as "the most manipulated and least credible in the country's democratic history", stating that cybersecurity uncertainty "compromises the validity of the results".

Libre, whose general co-ordinator is former president Manuel Zelaya, husband and principal adviser to President Xiomara Castro, has called for mobilisations to demand the election's annulment over what it termed "transmission irregularities".

The petition includes documentary evidence and demands the CNE convene hearings within three days.

The party also raised concerns about external interference. Among its arguments, Libre denounced multiple Truth Social posts by Trump during Honduras's electoral silence period. These messages urged Honduran voters to support Asfura whilst rejecting the two other leading contenders, and threatened to cut US funding if either Moncada or Nasralla won.

Libre claims these messages constituted "a violation of the non-interference principle and peoples' self-determination", norms enshrined in Honduras's constitution. The petition affirms these facts affected process transparency and placed "in precariousness the results' legality", violating citizens' voting rights and electoral equity.

Counting delays have prompted international organisations to urge Honduran authorities to expedite the process and implement measures to reinforce citizen confidence in electoral results. The electoral body reports that of 16,858 scrutinised acts since Friday, 14,451 are considered "correct", whilst 2,407 present "inconsistencies", requiring a vote-by-vote recount.

At the CNE computation centre, 2,571 acts remain pending entry from a total of 19,152, prolonging uncertainty over final results.

The delays have fuelled political tensions. On December 7, Moncada demanded the annulment of the election and said the party was calling on supporters to participate in marches, strikes and sit-ins to protest what she called election fraud.

Despite these calls, Tegucigalpa's streets and other Honduran cities have remained calm in the week since elections, as officials have pleaded for patience. But residents say delays have undermined their already fragile trust in the country's electoral body.

Voting on November 30 was calm and peaceful, according to independent electoral observers. However, subsequent result reporting has been chaotic, marred by starts and stops, intensifying frustrations over the tight race. Electoral council members have blamed the company behind the tabulating platform for vote count pauses.

The crisis has drawn international attention. On December 7, the Organization of American States' electoral mission to Honduras called for the tallying process to be "expedited".

Nasralla, who has alleged that election results were rigged by Asfura and his party, stated on X that his party is ready to review results with the CNE and the National party.

"This is theft," he wrote on December 8 in a post on X.

The CNE has not yet issued an official response regarding Libre's petition, but decided to grant extensions for administrative annulment action and special review and recount requests, "given delays in electoral results processing and unavailability of the results dissemination page". The electoral body has until December 30 to declare a winner, according to Honduran law.