Venezuelan elections

Venezuela's stolen election: The international community must react

The Venezuelans have voted for a new president. However, the Maduro regime refuses to acknowledge its defeat and is committing electoral fraud. "It is now up to the international community to decide whether it will tolerate a demonstrably illegitimate government. The repression must end immediately so that an urgent agreement on the transition to democracy can be reached," explains María Corina Machado.

Venezuelans fight for their voting rights

On election day, the hope of millions of Venezuelans longing for change was palpable. Long queues formed outside the polling stations even before they opened at 6:00 am. Some voters even queued all night. Reports of voters being denied access to polling stations, delays and difficulties with registration were widespread. Venezuelans living abroad faced additional obstacles. According to official figures, only 69,211 Venezuelans living abroad were able to register to vote, although it is estimated that half of the 7.7 million Venezuelans living abroad are of voting age. Despite these obstacles, polls on election day confirmed the trend observed in recent months: the opposition was supported by an overwhelming majority of the Venezuelan population.

How the electronic voting process works

In Venezuela, the electoral process is electronic. Voters identify themselves at the polling station using their fingerprints and cast their vote on a device that displays photos of the presidential candidates. The voter taps the screen with the selected candidate and the voting machine prints a receipt with the chosen candidate and political party, which the voter then places in a ballot box. After the voting ends, the tally sheet, which contains the number of votes received by each candidate broken down by party, is signed by the members of the election board, the election witnesses, and the voting machine operators of each polling center. The election results are then sent via dedicated lines to the National Electoral Council (Consejo Nacional Electoral or CNE). Witnesses from various parties receive paper copies of the results, and if selected for verification, the digital information is compared with the manual count from the ballot box.

Election assistants are drawn from the voter registry, and political parties can nominate election witnesses, who are sent to the polling stations on the election day. Particularly, the opposition coalition "Democratic Unity Platform" of candidate Edmundo González, under the leadership of María Corina Machado, organized 58,000 so-called "Comanditos" (volunteer groups) to support their witnesses in more than 30,000 polling stations. After the witnesses receive their copies, the political parties organize the transfer of this information to their campaign headquarters. The opposition coalition had arrenged a sophisticated logistical process to scan the paper copies and upload them to two publicly accessible websites. The National Electoral Authority's website, which was also supposed to publish the tally sheets, has been offline since election night.

The tally sheets in Venezuela have several security features, including QR codes that certify their authenticity. A hash code, unique and non-reproducible, identifies the sheet in the National Electoral Authority's databases. The sheets also show the date and time of issuance, as well as additional codes generated by the unique network address of the machine. In case of discrepancies, the devices can reprint the sheets once they return to the National Electoral Authority.

Machado and González denounce falsified election results

Major irregularities were revealed during the night: the transmission of official vote count results from the polling stations to the National Electoral Authority was interrupted when about 30% of the voting records were available. The absurd reason for stopping the transmission, later given by the regime, was an alleged cyberattack from North Macedonia

In the early hours of Monday, the National Electoral Authority, led by Elvis Amoroso-a close ally of Maduro-announced the results. After an alleged count of 80% of the votes, Maduro was declared the winner with 51% of the votes, while González received 44% of the votes.

The opposition, led by liberal politician María Corina Machado, immediately denounced the results announced by the regime on Monday as fraudulent. Machado argued that by that time, the opposition already had access to 40% of the vote counts, which showed a clear victory for González with 70% of the votes.

A few hours later, more tally sheets arrived at the opposition camp, González declared the opposition's victory as "categorical and mathematically irreversible." The opposition made the overall and detailed results of nearly all polling stations, based on the tally sheets collected by election witnesses, publicly available for verification on the websites https://resultadosconvzla.com/ and https://resultadospresidencialesvenezuela2024.com/.

On election day, the opposition had two election witnesses in almost all of the polling stations who first defended and then scanned the voting records despite repression from the regime. After about 81.21% of the counts, the results on the website confirmed that González received 67% of the votes (7,119,768), while Maduro had only obtained 30% (3,225,819).

USA recognizes Edmundo González Urrutia as the legitimate winner of the Venezuelan presidential elections

On August 1, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the United States has concluded, based on "overwhelming evidence," that opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia won the presidential elections in Venezuela on July 28. Blinken urged all parties to initiate a transition process that respects the election outcome and supports the restoration of democratic norms in Venezuela. Blinken stated that the results presented by the opposition, covering 80% of the polling stations, confirm that González Urrutia won the majority of votes by a clear margin.

In light of the National Electoral Authority's failure to provide detailed and broken-down results, countries and institutions worldwide, including the G7 foreign ministers, have called for transparency in the vote count. The Carter Center, one of the few observer organizations allowed by the regime, criticized the election for not meeting international standards and lacking democratic integrity.

Ten Latin American countries-Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay-issued a joint statement a day after the elections, calling for a review of the results. Panama subsequently suspended diplomatic relations with Venezuela. Peru recognized Edmundo González as the new president of Venezuela on July 30.

The Maduro regime retaliated by severing diplomatic relations with the seven Latin American countries: Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay. Meanwhile, the Argentine embassy in Caracas, which has provided dipplomatic assylum to 6 opposition members, reported the presence of patrols and regime officials in the vicinity while the power supply was cut off. Following the expulsion of Argentine diplomats, Argentina and Brazil agreed that, starting August 1, Brazil would take control of the Argentine embassy and protect the opposition members housed there.

The international community emphasized the need to uphold democratic principles and protect political freedoms in Venezuela. A proposed OAS resolution on July 31, calling for the publication of verifiable election results, fell one vote short of the 18 needed for adoption. Seventeen countries supported the resolution, while Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Honduras, along with several Caribbean countries, abstained. Venezuela, Mexico, and three Caribbean countries did not vote.

Protests and Repression

Protests are taking place in various cities in Venezuela, leading to clashes between demonstrators and security forces as well as government-affiliated paramilitary groups known as Colectivos. According to Foro Penal, a Venezuelan non-governmental organization, at least 11 people have been killed and 711 arrested since July 29. The regime has imposed curfews and disrupted internet services to suppress information about the unrest. Human rights organizations have condemned the regime's repressive actions and call for an immediate investigation into human rights violations.

The Path to Freedom

Thousands of Venezuelans are on the streets, demanding freedom and the recognition of their votes. Meanwhile, the Maduro regime aims to stay in power for at least six more years without providing any evidence of its alleged election victory. Opposition leaders and their supporters are risking their lives for change. From abroad, we can raise our voices to urge our governments to take decisive action, condemn the electoral fraud, and facilitate a way out of the current situation. The authoritarian nightmare for Venezuelans has lasted far too long. In an op-ed published today in the Wall Street Journal, María Corina Machado urgently calls on the international community: