Abstract
Within the framework of the Bicentenary of our Political Independence, this article proposes a historiographic, structural and statistical reading of a valuable document, until now insufficiently studied by specialists on electoral history of Peru. We will place the Civic Census of 1826, the earliest set of electoral registers of citizens of Lima made for the elections of the first members for the Congress of Republican Peru, within its political pretensions. This census attempted to redefine the number and identity of Lima's citizens according to the demagogic strategy of the Bolivarian government to adhere to the representation of new citizens, who were then displaced and even labeled as "criminals" after the failed elections in the 5th Quarter of the Saint Lazarus Parish. Our article is divided into two parts. The first identifies the causes and political motivations that influenced the ordering of the Civic Census of 1826, according to the sequence of electoral events prior to it, and the second analyzes the pattern of the censuses from a structuralist and statistical point of view that allows us to approach the state of citizen representation that the electoral system allowed during the first years of the Republic. For this purpose, we have consulted first-hand sources, mainly from the municipal historical collection, as well as information from other repositories, such as the General Archive of the Nation, the Archiepiscopal Archives of Lima and the Ancient Collection of the National Library of Peru.
