Venezuela: A Crack in the Dam of Indifference

The International Herald-Tribune, not anybody’s idea of a right-wing organ (it is owned by the New York Times Company), today carries an article about the Venezuelan referendum headlined “Evidence of an Electoral Fraud Is Growing” (via The American Thinker). The author, Enrique ter Horst, has a résumé that ought to be acceptable to the Left: former U.N. assistant secretary general, head of the U.N. peacekeeping operations in El Salvador and Haiti, and deputy high commissioner of human rights. His report on the referendum’s aftermath:

The perception that a massive electronic fraud led to President Hugo Chávez’s mandate not being cut short in the recall referendum on Sunday is rapidly gaining ground in Venezuela. All exit polls carried out on the day had given the opposition an advantage of between 12 percent and 19 percent. But preliminary results announced by the government-controlled National Electoral Council at 3:30 a.m. gave Chávez 58.2 percent of the vote, against 41.7 percent for the opposition. At first people scratched their heads in disbelief, including many Chávez supporters, but accepted these figures after César Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, and former President Jimmy Carter said their own quick counts coincided with the electoral council’s figures. Two days after the referendum, however, evidence is growing that the software of the touch-screen voting machines had been tampered with. . . .

The electoral council has stated that the voting machines were audited after the vote, but the council did so in the absence of any opposition representative or any international observer. A cause for even greater concern is the fact that the papers the new machines produced confirming the voter’s choice – which the voter had to verify and then drop into a closed box – were not added up and compared with the final numbers these machines produce at the end of the voting process, as the voting-machine manufacturer had suggested.

Evidence of foul play has surfaced. In the town of Valle de la Pascua, where papers were counted at the initiative of those manning the voting center, the Yes vote had been cut by more than 75 percent, and the entire voting material was seized by the [pro-Chávez] national guard shortly after the difference was established.

Three machines in a voting center in the state of Bolivar that has generally voted against Chávez all showed the same 133 votes for the Yes option, and higher numbers for the No option. Two other machines registered 126 Yes votes and much higher votes for the No. The opposition alleges that these machines, which can both send and receive information, were reprogrammed to start adjudicating all votes to the No option after a given number of Yes votes has been registered.

Although the Organization of American States and the Carter Center have called the election free and fair, their quick count justifying this statement was also based only on the numbers provided by the voting machines. The two organizations had brokered an agreement to examine, in the presence of government and opposition representatives, a sample of 150 voting points chosen at random. A comparison of the results printed out by these machines with the papers contained in the corresponding boxes was to be concluded this week. But the opposition now wants all machines and ballot boxes to be examined.

Given the complaisance of the international “monitors” and the ease with which ballots from a mere 150 precincts can be fixed, suspicion is surely justified.

Most likely, this tiny crack in the dam of international indifference to a probable electoral coup d’etat will not halt President Chavez’s impending dictatorship, but there remains a sliver of hope, if not for Venezuelan democracy, at least for the final obliteration of Jimmy Carter’s ill-deserved reputation as a force for good in the world.

Earlier Thoughts: More from Venezuela, A Venezuelan Lesson for Would-Be Dictators

Update: Venezuela News and Views describes how the chavista fraud could have been carried out in a manner that an audit of a small number of voting machines taken at random would be unlikely to detect.

Thor L. Halvorssen, “The Price of Dissent in Venezuela”. Chavez supporters shot Sr. Halvorssen’s mother during a demonstration on Monday. He also furnishes additional reasons to be suspicious of the election results:

Many in the opposition are baffled by the inverse relationship between the projected numbers and those reported by the Chávez regime. One possible clue to this remarkable phenomenon lies with the companies hired to supply the voting machines and the software. Smartmatic Corp., a Florida company that has never before supplied election machinery, is owned by two Venezuelans. The software came from Bizta Software, owned by the same two people. The Miami Herald recently revealed that the Chávez regime spent $200,000 last year to purchase 28% of Bizta and put a government official and longtime Chávez ally on the board. After the story broke, Bizta bought back the government-held shares and the official resigned from the board. But not until after the two companies were granted a significant part of the $91 million contract for the referendum. Executives at both Smartmatic and Bizta have denied any political allegiance to the Chávez regime and have issued public statements saying the contract was awarded purely on the merits.

If something like that happened when a state government bought voting machines in the United States, what would you suspect?

Update II (August 19, 2004): From today’s Wall Street Journal [link probably for subscribers only] (the left-leaning news section, not the editorial page):

The Wall Street Journal yesterday viewed results from 24 polling booths. In all of those cases, two or three polling booths registered the same number of “yes” votes in favor of ousting Mr. Chavez, while the amount of “no” votes and the total number of voters all varied. At one polling station in the state of Bolivar, for instance, results showed that 153 voters cast “yes” ballots versus 215 “no” ballots. At the next booth, 153 voters again cast “yes” ballots versus 237 “no” votes. J.J. Rendon, a political adviser to Bolivar Gov. Antonio Rojas, allowed journalists to examine ballot results showing some of the alleged voting discrepancies.

National Electoral Council official Jorge Rodriguez rejected the tampering accusations as “irresponsible” and “criminal” fabrications.

Nothing to see here but coincidence. Move right along, folks. Alas, the international media probably will, as Caracas Chronicles laments: “It would take a miracle of public relations management for the opposition to win the international public opinion battle around the referendum. As far as 99% of foreigners are concerned, what Carter says, goes.”

Comments

[Andrew]

I liked the IHT story; the facts coincided with what I've been reading on the Venezuelan blogs.

One item, however, concerns me. The IHT report includes this quote:
"Evidence of foul play has surfaced. In the town of Valle de la Pascua, where papers were counted at the initiative of those manning the voting center, the Yes vote had been cut by more than 75 percent, and the entire voting material was seized by the national guard shortly after the difference was established."

The question is: Why did the discovery of improper paper-ballot values wait for the actions of a poll-worker? Why didn't individuals who voted "Si" notice that their paper ballots had the wrong value.

UNLESS what happened was a switcheroo, i.e. the government tampered with the paper ballots AFTER they were all cast. Could they have done this for all 8 million ballots? Or is it possible that they could tamper with boxes that they knew would be audited? Who is selecting the 150 sites to be audited under the government plan, the CNE alone or CNE in conjunction with the CD/OAS/CC?

But if this is case, what do we make of the Valle de la Pascua story?