IN THE days leading up to Honduras’s contentious national election on November 26th, one might expect to see candidates tossing bags of beans from pickup trucks and party workers handing out benefit cards. Such methods to sway poor voters have been used before by the National Party of Juan Orlando Hernández, who is running for re-election as president. Opposition parties have used the same techniques, which are frowned upon but not illegal.

Allegations of outright vote-rigging are widespread in Honduras but difficult to prove. The Economist has obtained a recording that, if authentic, suggests the ruling party has plans to distort results in the upcoming elections. Hondurans will be voting in congressional and municipal elections as well as the presidential one.

Roughly two hours long, the recording appears to be of a training session for members of the National Party who will be manning voting tables at polling stations on election day. The Economist received the recording from a participant. At the outset of the session, the woman leading it asks participants to hand over their mobile phones, saying, “Estamos en confianza, somos todos nacionalistas” (“this stays between us; we’re all National Party members”). She identifies herself as an employee of the government.

She reminds the trainees that they have attended a previous training session and that they have been handpicked through a rigorous process. “Today is Plan B,” she then announces. “Plan B means we’re on the offensive.” It appears to be a scheme for fraudulently boosting the vote of the National Party at the expense of its rivals.

Juan Diego Zelaya, the secretary of the National Party, said he was unaware of “Plan B” or of any training sponsored by his party on how to commit electoral fraud. “Our training sessions correspond to what is mandated by electoral law,” he says. He doubts the authenticity of the tape, but said he would investigate whether such a session took place.

By law, the ten political parties with candidates in the election can name two representatives at each of the 5,687 polling stations. They are responsible for checking voters’ identity cards, counting ballots and signing off on tally sheets that summarise the results, which are transmitted by machine to the supreme electoral tribunal (TSE). Each representative’s specific function, such as signing in voters, is decided by lot on the day of the election.

The parties choose and train their own polling staff. The idea is that they will police each other at the polling stations. Electoral law prohibits government employees from working at voting tables. But some of the National Party’s representatives, including some of the participants in the training session recorded on tape, work for the government. Mr Zelaya of the National Party says he is unaware of a prohibition on government employees manning polling tables.

By The Economist’s count, the session’s leader advocates at least five vote-rigging methods, couching them in banal terms such as “strategy” and “technique” and interspersing them with legitimate advice. The first, and the key to all the others, is for National Party representatives to obtain poll-workers’ credentials from smaller parties. This would help them outvote their rivals at the polling stations in case of disputes. The woman in charge of the session advises trainees not to tell observers which party they represent, but just to show the party credential they have been given. In the last national elections, in 2013, small “suitcase” parties were thought to have sold or given their credentials to larger ones, those with more people available to man voting tables. On the tape the session leader talks of allowing National Party workers to pose as representatives of Vamos and other small parties. The credentials of the National Party will bear the names of its workers—to prevent fraud, says Mr Zelaya. But those of the smaller parties will not, making it easier to transfer them. Vamos, for one, may not co-operate. Last week it returned some 18,000 credentials to the TSE, saying it did not want to participate in the clandestine trade.

The second trick is to allow National Party voters to vote more than once: avoid marking off their names and do not ink their pinky fingers after they have voted, the trainer suggests. “If you recognise me, let me in, don’t stain my finger, and I leave with my mouth closed,” she says.

She suggests three ways to alter the vote during the counting process: spoiling ballots by adding extra marks; filling in leftover ballots; and damaging the bar-code on tally sheets that record a majority for opposition parties. “If I’ve lost the polling station, why do I care if [the tally sheet] arrives at the tribunal?” she asks.

The last of these techniques is especially good for “women who use fake nails or men who are strong”, the trainer says. Its purpose is to delay the inclusion of tally sheets favouring the opposition in the preliminary vote count. Damaged tally sheets may not be included in that first vote count. Tally sheets won by the National Party, by contrast, should be signed, sealed and delivered as quickly as possible. The preliminary count is “the one we’re going to win with”, she says.

The session leader supplements these instructions with more general advice. The techniques she recommends should be used “discreetly, with intelligence and astuteness”, she advises. More than once she urges trainees to remain alert and to take advantage of inattention by representatives of rival parties. It helps to “know your allies and enemies” at the voting table, she says. The goal is to put the latter “to sleep”. But be careful if he is “a tiger...They know these strategies, too.”

The contents of the recording would not surprise cynical Honduran voters or observers of past elections in the country, though it is rare for evidence of vote-rigging to become public. The methods the trainer imparts are classic “dirty tricks”, says a non-Honduran expert in election monitoring, who was given a summary of the tape. During the count, which can be “chaotic”, there is “room for manipulation and collusion”, he says. The use of party workers at voting tables is “a bad way to run elections and it can be corrupted”.

A European Union mission to observe the elections in 2013 recorded numerous irregularities, including the trading of smaller parties’ credentials to larger parties and cases of voter intimidation. In the town of El Paraíso, near the border with Guatemala, supporters of the National Party blocked several opposition parties from putting up mayoral candidates; it went on to win 97% of the vote there.

But the EU mission said that the irregularities did not change the outcome and applauded the high turnout. In that contest, Mr Hernández defeated the candidate of the left-wing Libre party, Xiomara Castro, by 37% to 29%. One EU observer, Leo Gabriel, an Austrian journalist, broke ranks and challenged the results, saying that the votes of dead people had been recorded and that some tally sheets were sent to the wrong place. Some losing candidates, including Ms Castro, took to the streets to protest against the result. The TSE reviewed the result and affirmed it.

The latest opinion poll, published in September, puts Mr Hernández 15 percentage points ahead of his nearest rival, Salvador Nasralla, which suggests he would win an unrigged election. Nonetheless, opposition candidates are already alleging that the National Party is plotting to rig the result, in part to improve its position in congress, where it is in a minority.

“The electoral tribunal...is at the service of the president,” said Víctor Meza, a political analyst, to Confidencial, a Nicaraguan newspaper. He had served in the government of Manuel Zelaya, a Honduran president who was ousted in a coup in 2009 after he tried to organise a referendum that would have allowed him to run for re-election, which was not then permitted under the constitution. Foreign observers also doubt the electoral tribunal’s independence.

The army is in charge of delivering ballots. Government workers, unlike volunteers for opposition parties, can be pressed by their bosses and co-workers to man voting tables, distribute leaflets and run other election errands. Those chosen for the “Plan B” training sessions were photographed and promised rewards for their loyalty, according to a participant. “Our president has us very well co-ordinated,” says the trainer on the recording. “Everyone knows his or her role.”

The Honduran government has gone to great lengths to create the appearance of a clean election. The electoral tribunal boasts on its website that more international observers will monitor this year’s vote than ever before. Domestic observers from a coalition of civil-society groups will also be watching.

Still, says Susan Hyde, an elections expert at the University of California, Berkeley, “international observers are rarely present at more than 10% of polling stations.” She does not think the techniques outlined on the recording can skew the election. But such “election manipulation” undermines voter confidence.

It will also prompt the losers to contest the election results, warns the other foreign election expert, who asked that his name not be used. Many consider Mr Hernández’s candidacy itself illegitimate. He can run only because the supreme court controversially overturned presidential term limits in 2015. If the National Party really intends to implement “Plan B,” expect things to get messy.

For audio excerpts and transcripts in English and Spanish, click here