Some encouraging signs are coming out of the CNE. First of all, it has agreed to give the opposition copies of the voting “notebooks” in which people signed that they had voted. This is important because the opposition will be able to check the consistency of the total number of voters in the notebooks versus the final tally of the electronic and manual registries.
The CNE has also agreed to allow the manual counting of up to 10% of all machines. This is an improvement, but I still do not understand what is the rationale for not counting them all. After all, the counting will be done by the volunteers manning the polling stations and it would all be done simultaneously nationwide.
What bothers me is that a precise count will be more important in the upcoming regional election that in the recall vote. There will be races for Mayor that will be decided by a few hundred votes and common sense would suggest that having a manual and electronic count that match would eliminate most sources of controversy. It would seem to me that for the CNE, the winners of the regional races, the opposition and the Government, having transparent and unquestionable results would help reduce the high level of confrontation present in Venezuela. But common sense is rare these days here, reminding me of the saying “common sense may be the least common of all of the senses”
The Devil's Excrement 
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