Scholars Unveil How Maduro Stole Venezuela’s Vote

 

The 2024 Presidential election in Venezuela, like most elections since the introduction of electronic voting 21 years ago, was heavily guarded and audited by citizens. Despite this oversight, incumbent president Nicolás Maduro stole the election. Due to the system's design and its built-in safeguards, the manipulation could not be concealed.

As reflected in the academic paper entitled “How Maduro Stole Venezuela's Vote,” by Javier Corrales and Dorothy Kronick: “Each voter cast a ballot on one of Venezuela’s electronic voting machines, inspected her individual ballot receipt (an actual piece of paper), and then dropped that receipt into a ballot box.

Later that evening, hundreds of thousands of people worked in concert to collect the results. They printed tally sheets from each voting machine. They counted millions of individual paper ballot receipts. They took photographs and videos documenting their work. And two days later, the González campaign published the results online. The campaign posted images of tally sheets that, taken together, accounted for more than 80 percent of ballots cast. González had won in a landslide. Shortly after midnight on election night, however, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) declared that Maduro had won. He remains in office.”

To steal an election in which voters had proof of the results, incumbent President Nicolás Maduro simply relied on his tight control of Venezuelan election authorities and the military to announce fake results and get away with it. It mattered little that the electronic voting system, in its various versions, had been extensively audited for years and reflected a victory for Edmundo Gonzalez. As Corrales and Kronick conclude: "Venezuela is a dictatorship in which people count votes democratically."

The electronic voting technology was implemented in 2004 for the Presidential Recall referendum, at a time when most Venezuelan voters supported then-President Hugo Chavez. “As the beneficiary of the biggest oil windfall in the history of the Americas, Chávez had no need to steal elections.” After winning that referendum, Chavez quickly realized that an efficient and transparent electronic voting system would provide the legitimacy he craved. Consequently, from 2004 until 2017, Venezuelan elections were closely monitored by the world's most prominent election observation missions, including the Carter Center, the Organization of American States, and the European Union. These institutions repeatedly validated the legitimacy of the results. Chavez simply had the votes.

“Unlike Chávez, his handpicked successor Maduro had little luck hanging on to popular support. Yet he chose not to uproot the transparent vote-counting system. Instead, he opted to buy election-loss insurance in the form of the armed forces’ loyalty. This loyalty is the base from which Maduro has safely defied the constitution and laws, not only by his reaction to the 2024 election but also by his behavior in previous elections, by the indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Venezuelans, and by political assassinations, among other crimes.”

As inauguration day approaches in Venezuela, widespread concerns about the legitimacy of the 2024 elections continue to intensify. There is wide consensus—from sworn adversaries like the United States and Argentina to former allies such as Colombia and Brazil—that Nicolás Maduro’s claim to the presidency on January 10 is illegitimate. The electronic voting system was designed to provide copies of tally reports to all political parties, serving as evidence capable of exposing electoral fraud if it were to occur. Citizens have diligently collected and safeguarded this proof.  Despite this, Maduro has refused to accept defeat and relinquish power.

Venezuelan Election Result Sparks Legitimacy Concerns

Venezuela’s National Elections Council (CNE) rushed on Monday, July 29, to proclaim Nicolas Maduro president for the next six years following presidential elections that had been hailed as among the most significant in the Americas in 2024. However, the election's legitimacy remains heavily disputed by opposition leaders, observation missions, and diplomatic envoys from the region.

In a swift and controversial move, the CNE declared Maduro the victor without publishing a single tally report on its website, a practice it had followed in almost every election since 2004. This unprecedented action has cast a shadow over the transparency and fairness of the entire election process. According to the initial bulletin issued early Monday morning, 80% of the tally reports had been processed at that time. If the CNE had already received this high percentage of the tally reports, why didn't they make them available on their website?

The CNE’s deviation from established transparency protocols marks a significant break from the practices it had followed since the onset of electoral automation nearly two decades ago. Since 2004, Venezuela had cultivated an electoral culture that included thorough audits before, during, and after the election.

Before these presidential elections, the CNE announced a series of 12 audits to ensure the election's legitimacy, but it failed to follow through. Essential processes to create a paper trail that would validate the results were omitted.

Unlike previous elections, where political actors received tally reports from every single voting machine and could compare these copies with the results published on the CNE website, this vital validation was not possible.

According to Omar Barboza, coordinator of the Unitary Platform, the opposition was denied copies of the voting records in nearly 70% of the voting centers on the night of the election. Additionally, 24 hours after announcing the results, the CNE had not published results by polling station, preventing political actors, observation missions, and the public from verifying the legitimacy of the declared results.

Once lauded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter as “the best in the world,” Venezuela's voting system has seen a dramatic decline in credibility, particularly after the CNE severed ties with its long-time technology provider, Smartmatic. Under the current provider, Argentine-based ExCle, elections have become increasingly controversial, culminating in the latest election.

In 2020, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned ExCle for assisting Nicolás Maduro in conducting fraudulent elections. ExCle is known for its close connections with key figures in the CNE and the regime.

The rushed proclamation of Maduro, coupled with the CNE’s departure from established protocols, has led to widespread skepticism and calls for a thorough investigation. The international community and Venezuelan citizens alike await further details to understand the full extent of the election's irregularities.

Questions hound purchase of new voting machines in Venezuela

  

When 48,000 voting machines burned in a mysterious fire that razed the warehouses of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) earlier this year, rumors flew thick and fast that it had something to do with the December parliamentary elections. The timing of the fire seemed suspicious to many as it left the CNE with very little wiggle room to select, purchase, and implement a new voting system.

Yet, as if on cue, news that the CNE acquired 15,000 new China-made machines have recently surfaced even as the circumstances around the fire is still unknown.

Alarmingly, the purchase seems to be clouded with questions. Chief of which is the criteria used to arrive at the decision to purchase the technology from an Argentine company named Exclé. There are no records of the company ever manufacturing a voting machine, not even in Argentina. Many have also observed the lack of transparency on the cost of the machines and the software they will use.

In the center of the controversy is the CNE, where shadiness seems to have been reigning supreme. The lack of transparency in crucial decisions made at the helm of the CNE prompted Director Rafael Simón Jiménez to resign only two months after being sworn in. Among the many irregularities he exposed as he exited the post was the direct purchase of the machines from ExCle.

Recently, the popular Venezuelan news portal Efecto Cocuyo ran an exposé on ExClé’s numerous involvement with the government of Nicolas Maduro Moros which include providing tech support for Bank of Venezuela and the Venezuelan cryptocurrency "Petro.” The company also provides biometric technology for Carnet de la Patria, or the homeland card.

These dealings led former Governor Carlos Tablante to raise in a Twitter thread the issue of conflict of interest. How indeed can a company with numerous lucrative dealings with a government be expected to count votes fairly?

The director of the Venezuelan Electoral Observatory (OEV), Carlos Medina, also expressed concern about the new purchase of voting machines claiming it "has not been very transparent". For years, OEV had been a staunch advocate of election automation. Yet concerns about the opaqueness surrounding the new technology have made the group question the credibility and legitimacy of future elections.

In 2017, automated voting company Smartmatic broke relations with the CNE after denouncing that the poll body had published results different from those counted by its system. Hastily, Exclé took over to organize the 2018 presidential elections, which was roundly condemned as illegitimate by the Lima Group, the Organization of American States, and the international community at large.

To make sure that everyone knows that it had severed any and all relationship with the CNE since August 2, 2017, Smartmatic issued a statement underscoring its public break with Venezuelan poll body. The statement also said explicitly stated that the break meant that CNE cannot anymore use the company’s software, and that the software to be used in the 2020 election with new machines purchased from another supplier is not theirs. Time is running out for Venezuela. As doubts grow, the hope of having credible elections to quell its roiling political environment dims.

Questions loom over Venezuela’s electronic voting system

The recent regional elections held on October 15 in Venezuela, have sparked a new wave of controversy around Venezuelan elections and the legitimacy of its results.

Andres Velasquez, who was the opposition candidate for the southern state of Bolivar, is crying foul and claims to have physical copies of all tally reports to back his claim. According to Velasquez, the printed machine tallying reports show thousands of more votes for him than the National Elections Council (CNE in Spanish) website shows.

As reported by Anatoly Kurmanaev for the Wall Street Journal, Luis Lander, director of the Venezuelan Electoral Observatory, a nonpartisan group in Caracas that tracks elections stated “There’s clear manipulation here,” after he examined voting-machine receipts that the opposition alliance posted online. “The results were altered to allow the losing candidate to be declared the winner,” he added.

Although the evidence presented seems conclusive, the truth is that fraud accusations should not come as a surprise. “Crying fraud is an extremely familiar routine to the Venezuelan opposition, and one that it has pursued at virtually every election since 1999,” wrote Rachael Boothroyd Rojas on venezuelanalysis.com.

David Smilde, a US scholar who has followed the political struggles in Venezuela, recently penned an article asking authorities and opposition parties come up with good answers to explain what has transpired through the press. He emphasized that “Both the CNE and the MUD have the ability to significantly clarify what happened and they should do so as soon as possible.”

Describing the electronic voting system used in Venezuela, and how easy could be to determine who is telling the truth, Smilde commented “Venezuela’s voting system has a solid system of audits and checks. Fantasies of secret tabulation rooms that alter the vote can be set aside. Each voter who votes, gets a paper receipt saying who she voted for, and then deposits it in a box. After the elections, the citizens who are working at the tables, representing all parties, count the ballots. Then they check their tabulation with the act that is printed out from the machine. They sign off on it and the parties’ witnesses get a copy of it. These acts can then be compared to the electoral tallies presented by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on their web page, and any fraud can be detected.”

Further complicating matters, during the National Constituency election held in August 2017, the CEO of Smartmatic, the company that had provided the electronic voting solution for all election since 2004, denounced that the turnout figures published by authorities had been manipulated by at least one million. Authorities disregarded the accusation as pure nonsense and proceeded to organize these latest elections with new technology providers.

Francisco Toro, from Caracas Chronicle, thinks “Venezuela’s machine-based electoral system has many, deep problems, but one key redeeming feature: it can be audited.” Questions are looming over Venezuela’s electronic voting system. It is time to act, and audit the tallying reports to find out what happened and clear all doubts. The future of a nation formerly regarded as a democracy beacon is at stake.