Transparencia Electoral warns Venezuelan elections did not meet the most basic democratic standards

Transparencia Electoral monitored the electoral process in Venezuela from the time it was announced until voting day (July 28th), and the subsequent events that can only be classified as massive fraud.

During the pre-electoral phase, serious obstacles were identified for the registration and updating of data for nearly 5 million Venezuelans of voting age residing abroad (almost 25% of the electoral registry), as well as for at least one million Venezuelans internally, who were unable to update their addresses and change their voting centers.

In addition to this, the political rights of several leaders were violated through illegal disqualifications (among them that of María Corina Machado), judicial intervention of political parties, and the persecution of opponents and even merchants who provided services to the campaign of Edmundo González, which resulted in more than 100 arbitrary arrests during the electoral process, many of which constitute forced disappearances.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) continued the tradicional policy of information opacity, the activities and timelines were not held or met, and the calendar was changed several times without prior notice. Furthermore, the actions of the CNE President, Elvis Amoroso, ended any semblance of institutionality. In fact, on of the five main directors (Rectores) of the CNE, Juan C. Delpino denounced that the board did not meet for months and that decisions were made unilaterally by Amoroso.

During the voting day, there were impediments to the entry of opposition witnesses into the voting centers, red spots (“puntos rojos“) near the precincts to control participation, the transport of voters, the use of state resources to benefit the ruling party, and a lack of willingness for witnesses and citizens to observe the closing of polling stations and the verification audits.

On Sunday night, CNE President Elvis Amoroso announced that Nicolás Maduro had obtained 51.2% of the votes (5,150,092), while the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, received 44.2% of the votes (4,445,978).

Amoroso assured that the trend was irreversible, although at the time of the announcement more than 2 million votes had not been counted (three times the difference between the candidates). The CNE did not publish the tallies of the scrutiny that supported the announced result. At the time of writing this report, more than 72 hours after the closing of the tables, the electoral authority had not published the tallies, and had already proclaimed Maduro as president-elect.

The Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) and the Campaign of Edmundo González have made an extraordinary effort to digitize and publish more than 81% of the tallies nationwide (as of Wednesday). After this process, recount shows Edmundo González obtained 7,119,768 votes (67%), while Maduro had 3,225,819 votes (30%).

Collaborators of Transparencia Electoral in Venezuela confirmed the platform of the PUD coalition was working and accessed some of the tallies of the scrutiny.

For its part, the Carter Center, the only international organization accredited by the CNE to carry out electoral monitoring, considered this Wednesday that the elections did not adhere to international standards of integrity and cannot be considered democratic.

Transparencia Electoral considers that the electoral process did not comply with the most basic democratic standards, and the results announced by the CNE have been forged, constituting a massive fraud.