Caracas Chronicles

Today, following the disputed election in Bolívar State, MUD demonstrated CNE committed tallying fraud at 11 different voting tables, altering the result of the election.

This is a game changer. Here’s why.

Venezuela’s machine-based electoral system has many, deep problems, but one key redeeming feature: it can be audited. If the results CNE announces in Caracas at the end of the day don’t match the actual votes punched into voting machines, that disparity will be blatant and easy to demonstrate. Tallying fraud cannot be hidden.

Check this out:

Voting machines produce a printed tally (acta) of votes at each voting center before those tallies are sent back to CNE headquarters in Caracas. Witnesses from all sides have to sign that print-out. (You see that on the right of the image above.)

After that tally is printed and signed, the machines are hooked up to the internet to send the data electronically to CNE, which puts up the tally on a website. (On the left, in the image above.)

If CNE’s website fiddles the count, it’s obvious, because the website won’t match the machine-tally.

Indeed, it doesn’t.

In Bolívar, the printed machine actas show thousands more votes for Andrés Velásquez than the CNE website shows. CNE’s website shows PSUV Candidate Justo Noguera winning the state by 1,471 votes. Without fraud, Velásquez is the winner.

According to veteran journalist Eugenio Martínez, these eleven machines were unable to send their data electronically to CNE. The data was uploaded by hand, and in the process, adulterated.

Así se resume la manipulación en #Bolívar 11 máquinas no transmitieron. Los datos se cargaron manualmente y al hacerlo se cambiaron

— Eugenio G. Martínez (@puzkas) October 18, 2017

Could it be that Velásquez adulterated the machine tallies?

It’s extremely unlikely. Here’s why.

Each acta is from a single machine, corresponding to a single voting table in voting centers that have several voting tables. You’d expect broadly similar results across different tables within a single voting center: after all, these are all neighbors in one area divided randomly between tables (according to their ID numbers.)

In each case, the CNE website gives results for this particular table that look nothing like the results at neighboring tables in the same voting center. But the machine tallies MUD is presenting show results broadly similar to those other tables within the same voting center.

MUD wins my Crisp New $100 Bill

These eleven actas prove fraud swung the election.

But they prove something much bigger, too.

For over a decade, the opposition has had a problem. While claims of fraud have circulated after many a lost election, it’s never been possible to show actual tallying fraud with the actas in hand as evidence. This crippled its credibility in international and even domestic circles.

Back in 2005, I first offered to send a crisp, new $100 bill to the first person to show a disparity between the CNE-tally and the machine printed tallies. For over a decade, nobody’s been able to claim that prize.

Today, MUD won that $100 bill.

The election for governor of Bolívar State was stolen and we can prove it.

This changes everything.

Here, for the record, is MUD’s full press release about this: