Caracas Chronicles

Between 10 and 11 pm on July 28, a television broadcast announced that Venezuela’s election authorities would soon hold a press conference to deliver the first bulletin of results. It was immediately noticeable that Rector Juan Carlos Delpino, Acción Democrática’s nominee for the CNE in 2023, was absent. However, Aimé Nogal Méndez, the other rector that was representing the opposition and a former Un Nuevo Tiempo militant with expertise in elections, was present. When the press conference began, Nogal was seated to the right of Carlos Quintero, the technical-electoral mastermind of chavismo, who has orchestrated the electoral body’s operations behind the scenes for the past 20 years.

By that time, anxiety had already gripped the nation. Despite the challenges, Venezuelans turned out in large numbers to vote, with polling stations scheduled to close at 6 pm unless voters were still in line. However, in several areas, Plan República officials refused to provide opposition witnesses with voting tallies and kept voting centers in low-income neighborhoods open, hoping for a late surge in chavista votes that never materialized. This was the first ominous sign of what would unfold later that night.

At 9 pm, top officials informed Rector Delpino that the CNE was being hacked, a claim that would later be used to justify the unusually slow transmission of polling station results to the CNE—only 58% of the usual speed. At 9:27 pm, Héctor Rodríguez, the ruling party’s perennial golden boy, declared peace had prevailed in Venezuela and announced plans to celebrate in Miraflores. Shortly afterward, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López delivered a speech congratulating the people for voting against international sanctions.

When Elvis Amoroso announced that Maduro had won by 700,000 votes, it started to become clear that the Maduro administration had aligned itself to cling to power without much explanation.

However, the fraud of July 28 didn’t begin with Amoroso’s declaration or the state of terror imposed the following day. It started a year earlier when the government forced the resignation of the previous CNE board, which had been appointed in 2021 following negotiations with opposition elements. Instead of Pedro Calzadilla, a tepid chavista historian, the regime placed Amoroso at the helm of the CNE, confident that the man who had disqualified María Corina Machado and other opposition leaders from running would oversee the largest election fraud in Latin America this century. Knowing that Amoroso had no expertise in electoral processes, the regime for the first time appointed Quintero among the five leading CNE members, now exposing him as a key architect of the fraud.

This is the story of how they’ve been attempting to replace the widely known fact that Edmundo González won by a landslide with a lie, a falsehood they can only maintain through state violence and the backing of the armed forces. Despite their efforts, they’ve left numerous traces of their missteps, visible to organized citizens and a vast community of observers.

The perpetration of an anticipated theft

It is a public and well-reported fact that the government began to curtail the vote of Venezuelans months before July 28. Most notorious was the disqualification of Machado and other potential candidates, and the persecution of those who assisted her and Edmundo González in the campaign trail. There was also a self-sabotaged effort to renew the bare electoral roll of Venezuelans abroad (where only 69 thousand people, out of millions possible, were registered to vote), and the creation of 1,446 tiny voting centers, which represent only 2% of the electorate but were strategically located in remote sites dominated by chavista structures.

The institutions controlled by chavismo also contributed to hindering the registration of the democratic opposition’s candidate, which turned out to be a last-minute milestone. As Venezuela entered the final week before Election Day with Edmundo’s candidacy intact, the scenario of a “subtle fraud” that could contest a narrow opposition win seemed uphill for Maduro. Since February, Maduro had been talking about winning by fair or foul means. Just days before the vote, he warned of a bloodbath if he wasn’t elected. Meanwhile, his office received reports from the president’s own private pollsters, who predicted his defeat by at least 14%.

During that time, the government took strategic steps to dismantle the opposition’s electoral apparatus. The CNE blocked the website used for registering election witnesses and issuing training certificates. Maduro’s regime also revoked invitations to international observers like Argentina’s Alberto Fernández and delegations from Bogotá and Brasilia. As a result, the only international presence on Election Day was limited to Lula’s external affairs advisor, Celso Amorim, and a few other Brazilian delegates. By Thursday, July 25, the government resumed issuing credentials to political organizations and polling station members under the supervision of the Carter Center and the UN. Nevertheless, explicit orders were given to CNE staff and Plan República officers, who were tasked with securing the election, to obstruct the functioning of polling stations and hinder the efforts of opposition witnesses.

According to sources within the Venezuelan state consulted by Caracas Chronicles, the regime ordered delays in the installation of voting machines, with some even deliberately damaged, to postpone the opening of polling stations. They banned the delivery of voting tallies to opposition witnesses after polling stations shut and manipulated the installation process by excluding non-chavista polling station staff, favoring those loyal to Maduro—evident during the setup on Friday, July 26. Additionally, they issued directives to consider closing polling stations starting at noon ‘in case of low participation,’ a clear violation of regulations. Meanwhile, CNE’s municipal coordinators operated under the watchful eye of SEBIN, with any act of disobedience threatened as treason and terrorism.

One of the major stories of this election, however, is the failure of Maduro’s voter suppression strategy.

Despite the tactics employed by the regime, the CNE, Plan República, and FANB are institutions composed of ordinary Venezuelans who have themselves suffered under the chavista autocracy. The Comando Por Venezuela processed 83.5% of the voting records, equivalent to 10.88 million voters, with Edmundo receiving 67% of the votes. If we extrapolate the data to the 5,000 polling stations where opposition observers had no access to records, turnout would reach a remarkable figure: 13.5 million voters, which is roughly the total number of eligible voters in the Venezuelan territory. This participation would be approximately divided into 8.5 million for Edmundo, 4.1 million for Maduro, and 400 thousand for the other candidates. These projections suggest that the vast majority of officials involved in the electoral process ignored the directives from Miraflores. For the Chavista state, ultimately, it is not so easy to coerce its entire workforce.

By the evening of July 28, the chavista elite found itself in a troubling predicament. What should they do if, as expected, Maduro was resoundingly defeated once the first machines began transmitting data? It’s possible that many were uncertain, judging by the ambiguous statements made by spokesmen like Jorge and Héctor Rodríguez when they cast their votes. As night fell, it became apparent that the leaders in Caracas decided to go ahead with the fraud.

A sloppy announcement

Between 7:30 and 7:50 pm, reports began circulating that the voting machines were taking longer than usual to transmit data. Contrary to Tarek William Saab’s claim of a cyberattack on the CNE’s telecommunications system originating from the former Yugoslavia, sources close to the electoral process informed Caracas Chronicles that the delay was intentionally caused by the CNE itself. They obstructed the transmission by blocking the reception of results on one of the two tallying servers (located at the CNE’s main headquarters and Plaza Venezuela). This deliberate slowdown was intended to prevent a quick declaration of González’s victory, buying time for Quintero, Amoroso, and their superiors to devise a solution.

Much like the Mexican PRI in 1988, Amoroso emerged to claim that the system had crashed due to sabotage. Without providing any detailed results by polling station, he announced figures that translated to the following percentages: 51.2000% for Maduro and 46.2000% for Edmundo—suspiciously round numbers, with the odds of being genuine standing at 1 in 101.2 million.

How can this be explained? In the infamous ‘totalization room’ of the CNE, no actual totalization bulletins are produced. The CNE technicians and party witnesses present can only observe in real time how many polling stations have sent data to the electoral body. The reports with the accumulated results are reserved for someone with privileged access: Carlos Quintero, Vice President of the CNE and the de facto head of the opaque provider of the electoral system, as Armando Info has revealed.

We can assume that Quintero and Amoroso, in direct communication with Maduro and Jorge Rodríguez, secluded themselves on the night of the 28th to crunch the numbers and figure out how to present Maduro as the victor to the world.

On the 29th, journalist Eugenio Martínez claimed that the bulletin read by Amoroso the previous night was printed in his office, not in the tally room. Regardless, Quintero—an IT expert familiar with the Electoral Registry since 2004—must have known that the figures announced that night were implausible, even for chavismo. In fact, the regime not only refused to publish results table by table but also canceled all post-electoral audits that Quintero himself had previously explained.

Maduro left naked

After several instances where the opposition either partially or entirely boycotted elections in Venezuela, María Corina Machado’s decision to participate on July 28, with the CNE overseeing the process, brought together three crucial factors. First, Machado’s organizational skills, honed as a co-founder of the NGO Súmate, enabled the rapid exposure of electoral fraud within 48 hours. Second, a mass of former chavista voters and dissident cadres, disillusioned with the PSUV, saw a viable candidate in González Urrutia—so much so that Maduro lost in every state. Third, a network of Venezuelans and foreign experts independently launched a project ahead of the election that successfully refuted the CNE’s figures, aligning with the work of the Comando Por Venezuela.

The Command and its dedicated team weren’t alone in gathering printed records and proving Edmundo’s victory with verifiable data. AltaVista PVT stands out among the monitoring organizations that backed the real results. Registered with the Open Science Frameworks, this ‘quick count’ initiative combined the expertise of local activists with election statisticians, who developed a sample representing 5% of the national total of polling stations.

Quick counts, or parallel vote tabulations, estimate the actual vote totals received by candidates and can either verify or challenge the figures provided by the state. AltaVista’s sample was stratified by voting centers based on their voting patterns between 2013 and 2021, with the first stratum including centers where the opposition historically received the most votes and the last stratum consisting of the most pro-chavista centers.

This academic article, published on July 28, details the design of the AltaVista sample. The analysis was further enriched with on-the-ground information gathered by witnesses. The authors include Dalson Figueiredo from the Federal University of Pernambuco, Rafael Nishimura and Walter Mebane from the University of Michigan, and an anonymous Venezuelan. AltaVista trained volunteers who were deployed to 1,500 polling stations, successfully photographing and sending 997 voting records to AltaVista with their phones. The results published on AltaVista’s dashboard show a margin of error of just 0.5% and closely match those obtained by the opposition.

In response, the regime dispatched Samuel Moncada, its representative at the UN, to challenge the AltaVista “ambush.” Moncada claimed that some records collected by the PVT had a different format from those of the Comando and were therefore false. However, he overlooks the fact that many of the records uploaded to AltaVista were copies in the possession of polling station members, which differ from those given to witnesses but share the same QR code.

Teams from El País, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Folha de São Paulo, and Estadão reviewed the photographs of the minutes obtained by AltaVista and verified their authenticity. Walter Mebane also audited the results from the 24,532 machines that printed minutes available on the Comando website. Mebane’s study concluded that the potential for fraud benefiting González exists in only two polling stations—an insignificant number.

Another investigation by Dorothy Kronick, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, defends the technical integrity of the Venezuelan electoral system, suggesting that chavismo has become a victim of its own creation. Kronick had access to tally sheets published by the Comando and corresponding ‘sister’ sheets produced during the citizen verification process. In this process, after polling stations close, volunteers work with CNE officials to open the safekeeping boxes and count the ballots by hand to verify that the votes recorded match those on the printed tally sheets. Kronick’s paper indicates that the citizen verification certificates she reviewed are consistent with the results on the tally sheets.

Key observers, such as the Carter Center and the UN panel of election experts, have been critical of the election. Their reports highlight that the CNE failed to meet international standards for electoral integrity and transparency by not publishing results table by table. Praised by Padrino López before the election, the Carter Center documented numerous irregularities that civil society had flagged since the CNE announced the electoral calendar in March, including violence against the opposition during the campaign, clientelist pressures on voters, and the inadequate renewal of the Electoral Registry.

The scale of the fraud appears to have prompted the UN to release a similar report that was supposed to be sent solely to the chavista government.

The saga of the presidential election seems to have concluded with the intervention of the chavista Supreme Tribunal, which only served to amplify accusations of CNE sabotage, delay the response of international actors by a few weeks, and further criminalize the opposition. Despite the magistrates’ theatrical display, CNE rectors have withheld detailed results and haven’t managed to falsify voting records.

The unfinished autopsy

Despite ongoing investigations, many questions remain about the events behind closed doors at the CNE, within military circles, and among the top ranks of the PSUV. Rector Juan Carlos Delpino spoke out recently, and in June expressed his concerns about censorship within the organization and Amoroso’s authoritarianism. Yet, the silence of Rector Aimé Nogal, who has remained distant from public scrutiny since her appointment, raises further questions. Nogal’s appointment in 2023 was negotiated with chavismo by Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales; will Rosales be held accountable for what transpired with Nogal at the CNE? The consent of various chavista factions to the fraud also remains unclear. Who was responsible for ordering such a large-scale fraud, and who was directly involved?

What is already evident is that chavismo will struggle to convince anyone of its supposed victory. Based on the evidence published and discussed so far, the question of who won on July 28 has been answered. Chavismo lacks credible arguments to refute the authenticity of the minutes published by the Comando and AltaVista. Furthermore, it cannot disprove the academic and journalistic analyses already released. Any attempt to falsify minutes will only make chavismo’s position more absurd. The opposition’s voting tallies are physically verified, protected by QR and encrypted codes that attest to their authenticity. Should chavismo attempt to publish new minutes, their falsity would be glaringly obvious. The responsibility for the genuine and distributed minutes, which reveal Maduro’s defeat, lies with the CNE and its operators. Any effort to alter these records would likely face significant resistance from CNE officials, who have already violated the law by not publishing results table by table. For now, it may be in their best interest to avoid further disclosures.

The need to conceal the truth became evident last week when the CNE briefly reactivated its website, only to take it down after an hour. It appears they realized the website’s exposure: anyone who had been selected as polling station staff and entered their personal details in the search engine could see their name and ID, which matched the voting tallies published by the opposition and AltaVista.

Looking ahead, if Maduro remains in power, future elections will likely be unviable, especially with institutions manipulated by him. The upcoming operation to renew the Electoral Registry might be as problematic or worse than the 2024 process, particularly amid a new wave of migration.

If the July 28 election is not recognized, the chances of holding a legitimate election where Venezuelans can decide their future will be minimal. Meanwhile, the opportunity to rely on guys like Petro and Lula to facilitate an “orderly transition” (as María Corina has suggested) is closing. The inauguration on January 10 presents an unprecedented crossroads, where the regime will either be forced to yield or, as it has done, continue to oppress a population that despises Maduro.

The Evidence Box

• The Comando Por Vzla website where registered voters can see the minutes of their own polling station.
• AltaVista PVT dashboard.
• Independent analyses of the published evidence by The New York Times, Associated Press, The Washington Post and El País.
• Voting map made by La Nación (a Buenos Aires newspaper) based on the tallies released by the opposition. Also, this map from VE360 shows the changes in voting patterns between 2015 and 2024. And, although there are dozens of maps of results by municipality, users of the net designed an interactive map of results by parish.
• Dorothy Kronick’s study on the performance of the Venezuelan electoral system in previous elections and how difficult it is to commit fraud, which concludes that the data published by the opposition are true: the original in English here, the Spanish translation here, the Caracas Chronicles commentary here.
• Carter Center report in English and Spanish.
• Report from the UN panel of electoral experts.
• On Armando Info: an investigation on the links between the Rodríguez family and the ExClé company, which operates the electoral system, and on Rector Aimé Nogal.
• Letter to the public from Rector Juan Carlos Delpino.
• Investigation by Armandoinfo that reveals the identities of the TSJ experts that were certifying the CNE results.
  

Illustration by Cristina Estanislao