The Devil's Excrement

Tulio Alvarezrote trhe report on fraud based on dozens of individual reports on each topic. Here I do a summary of the findings, each one backed by facts, data and evidence:

I. – Abuse of power and the partiality of the Electoral Board

–Voting Machines and fingerprint machines were purchased directly, sidestepping the law

–The Electoral Board abused its power, allowing the use of private data for political extortion, without any public power defending the rights of the citizens.

–The Electoral board has sidestepped the laws and been partial to the Government’s position. –Not once was the vote three to two for a proposal made by the opposition.

II. – The Armed forces

–High ranking military officers publicly opposed even the petition for a recall referendum against the mandate of Hugo Chávez Frías.

–The Armed Forces were used as an arm of political activism.

–The Defense Ministry provided support to the interference and fraud activities on August 15^th. The Committee has names and rank of military personnel that participated in them.

–Military equipment was used in the covert data communications room used to interfere with the recall vote. There is video evidence, including brand and serial number of the equipment used.

—Reserve forces who are supposed to only protect electoral activities were ordered to actively participate and intervene in the voting activities.

III. – Fraud in the Electoral registry

–National ID cards were issued to two million people without fulfilling the technical requirements or security procedures required.

–The database of dead citizens was manipulated and thousands of living Venezuelans who signed the petition for the recall were excluded from the Electoral rolls.

–Thousands were migrated without them requesting it.

–Thousands of government supporters were migrated to small and rural centers in order to justify the final result of the automated election. As many as 29 parishes now have more voters than inhabitants, which ahs been recognized by a CNE Director.

IV. – The Failure of the Audits

–The CNE never presented the audit of the hardware and software its consultants supposedly were going to carry out.

–The only presentation on certification of the software showed that there were certification faults with the software

–Complaints about the lack of ability of doing any pre-audit were always answered by saying the ‘hot-audit’ on the day of the vote made it unnecessary.

–The CNE unilaterally restricted the possible locations of the ‘hot-audit’ on the afternoon of the vote, restricting it to twenty municipalities in fourteen states.

–Credentials for opposition members to participate in the “hot-audit” were handed out at a meeting at 3 PM on the day of the vote.

–Most observers for the opposition were not allowed into the voting centers. In fact, they were able to go in only 27 seven of the 78 centers audited. A total of 199 were slated to be audited. The Si option won in these 27 centers by a 62% to 38% margin, exactly the reverse of the official results.

–The program to randomly select audit centers provided by the Carter Center was not used for “technical reasons”, instead a program provided by the electoral Board and run on its won PC was used.

–Ballot Boxes were under the supervision of the military for 72 hours despite carter center claims that they never left the side of the ballot boxes.

–19% of the randomly selected ballot boxes could not be found or had been tampered with.

V. – The Smartmatic Machines

–They were not stand alone machines, but gaming machines made by Olivetti which by nature are part of a network.

–Its dimensions are inadequate for a multiple election.

–Despite claims to the contrary the machines are bi-directional capable of receiving more than just handshakes.

–Each machine had its own IP number and was connected to the network.

–The machines sent and received messages from as many as five data centers, the two official ones at the CNE and the back up one, and three covert centers, one at the national library, one at the Bolivarian University and one at the ministry of Science and Technology.

–A complete video exists of one of these centers including all of the data and communications equipment, with brand names and serial numbers.  The Committee also obtained the identifications of three Mexican citizens, one Chilean citizen and all of the members of the military that operated that center.

–All of the data transmitted left its traces in the farm servers of CANTV allowing for the reconstruction in detail of all of the data transmitted.

–The Smartmatic machines had a Smartcard. Where are they?

–The Smartmatic machines had a back door without authorization privileges.

–The Smartmatic machines could run external modules independent of the executable use for the election.

–The machine transmitted the totals before printing the results in violation of the law.

–The fingerprint machines were being monitored from the covert data centers, where the flow of voters could be controlled.

VI. – The Political map of the Fraud

–Statistical studies revealed that 48% of the voting centers were irregular.

–Scientific studies established those centers which had numerical anomalies

–Telecommunications studies revealed that some centers which received high or excessive amounts of data from the CNE servers.

–The overlap of the three cases above determined the centers tampered with in the automated vote which combined with the results of the manual centers yielded that the Si option, in favor of recalling the mandate of Hugo Chavez Frías won by a margin of 54.8% for the Si and 45.2% for the NO.

VII.-Scientific Studies

–The results for the NO option were found to strongly violate Benford’s Law

–Benford’s law studies coincide in that part of the Si vote was shifted over to the no option.

–Simulations of numerical coincidences indicate that those observed in centers with four and six machines are essentially impossible.

–The statistical similarity between the 2000 Presidential election and the 2004 recall vote is excessive, more so given that the recall had only two options but the 2000 election had two additional candidates even if marginal.

–The sample made in the “cold audit on August 18^th. was determined not to be representative of the nationwide machines, including their social strata, the correlation with the petition and Benford’s law.

VIII. – Telecommunications

–The type of communications sessions established showed that there was both incoming and outgoing information flow; despite the claims to the contrary the machines were bidirectional beyond simple communication protocols.

–There were three types of termination of sessions, those ended by the server, those ended by the machine and those ended by loss of carrier.

–There were transmissions all day despite the fact that this is prohibited by law.

–There were three types of traffic between machines and servers. Low, high and excessive, with over 51% in the last two categories.

–Two different patterns of behavior were observed in the number of packets. Some machines had a low ratio of incoming to outgoing packets and others had a ratio of one.

–Those machines that had anomalous communications patterns were also found to be irregular statistically when one looked at each parish and when one looked at the statistical properties of machines as a function of the number of voters.

Things are moving very fast and I really don’t know what it means. The Carte center decided to pull out of the observation process for the regional elections. Thus, after doing a lousy job they say that the fact that the opposition did not recognize their decision as well as the lack of funding prevent them from coming. As far as I am concerned good riddance, they did not do the job last time, I had little hope they would do it this time around. There is a statement in that same communiqué that seems to suggest they are not as comfortable with automated voting processes.

The OAS will also not be here; apparently they are surprised by an election that legally was supposed to have taken place three weeks ago. Thus, we are left alone, no observers to watch the next rip off. We are probably better off anyway.

But maybe the Chavistas will be left on their own anyway, ratifying that their democracy is empty and is a shambles. Metropolitan mayor Alfredo Peña, whom I dislike tremendously, decided to withdraw his candidacy arguing that conditions are not adequate to participate in an election. Peña appeared to be leading the polls or very close so his decision appears to be more principled than at first sight.

This may simply be a sign of things to come as the Álvarez report appears to have convinced many people of the folly of participating in the regional elections under the current conditions.

Up to last week I was leaning towards thinking that it would be silly not to participate in the regional elections. I have changed my mind. The Álvarez report has proven to me not only that there was fraud, but that the whole process was simply a huge farce. The voting machines used were not even what they were purported to be. They were dumb terminals incapable of functioning outside of a network. They did not even have a memory!

I have changed my mind. I am a democrat but I want all candidates to withdraw until the electoral registry is audited and the law is followed, the law states very clearly THAT EVERY BALLOT BOX has to be counted. Until both these conditions are met, the opposition can not go blindly to an additional electoral process. The third condition required is that the machines can not transmit information during the day and the final results can not be transmitted until the final results have been printed.

Until all of these three conditions are met, your not so happy blogger, a true and veritable democrat, who has never failed to vote at any election, refuses to participate in the upcoming regional elections.

Venezuela has a very good institute for scientific research called IVIC (Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas) which is very close to my heart as I spent half my life there. The Director of IVIC is named by the Minister of Science and Technology. According to the law, the Minister will request the advice of all of the permanent researchers of which researcher should be named. According to the internal regulations of the Institute, the researchers will advise the Minister by suggesting a trio of researchers from the Institution. Typically, there is a secret vote and the top three vote getters are sent in a letter to the Minister, including the number of votes obtained. In early October such a process took place.

-Chavista version of what happened according to a verbatim translation from Government press agency Venpres:

Maximo Garcia Sucre was named as the new Director of IVIC, succeeding Egidio Romano.  This is indicated by the Official Gazette of Thursday October 14^th. of this month where the decision to name Raul Alejandro Padron Crema as the new Sub Director of the institute is also announced. The new Head of IVIC was elected by an assembly of researchers that evaluated his scientific credentials, personal and professional merits of each of those that were proposed for the job.

-What truly happened:

The minister rather than ask for three names, asked whether the Assembly of researchers approved of Dr. Garcia Sucre as Director. The Assembly rejected it by a vote of 85 to 10. The Assembly then proceeded to propose other candidates and a second vote took place in which Jesus del Castillo received 58 votes and Reinaldo Atencio (who is pro-Government) received 17 votes, ten more than Dr. Garcia Sucre.

Thus, the Minister in all her wisdom, disrespect for democracyand the Assembly, ignorance about the candidates and totalitarian mentality of this Government named Dr. Garcia Sucre. Venpres tried to lie around the events, but the truth shall make you free reading this blog!

Such is the state of lies and totalitarian attitudes in the Bolivarian revolution.

Venezuela has a very good institute for scientific research called IVIC (Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas) which is very close to my heart as I spent half my life there. The Director of IVIC is named by the Minister of Science and Technology. According to the law, the Minister will request the advice of all of the permanent researchers of which researcher should be named. According to the internal regulations of the Institute, the researchers will advise the Minister by suggesting a trio of researchers from the Institution. Typically, there is a secret vote and the top three vote getters are sent in a letter to the Minister, including the number of votes obtained. In early October such a process took place.

-Chavista version of what happened according to a verbatim translation from Government press agency Venpres:

Maximo Garcia Sucre was named as the new Director of IVIC, succeeding Egidio Romano.  This is indicated by the Official Gazette of Thursday October 14^th. of this month where the decision to name Raul Alejandro Padron Crema as the new Sub Director of the institute is also announced. The new Head of IVIC was elected by an assembly of researchers that evaluated his scientific credentials, personal and professional merits of each of those that were proposed for the job.

-What truly happened:

The minister rather than ask for three names, asked whether the Assembly of researchers approved of Dr. Garcia Sucre as Director. The Assembly rejected it by a vote of 85 to 10. The Assembly then proceeded to propose other candidates and a second vote took place in which Jesus del Castillo received 58 votes and Reinaldo Atencio (who is pro-Government) received 17 votes, ten more than Dr. Garcia Sucre.

Thus, the Minister in all her wisdom, disrespect for democracyand the Assembly, ignorance about the candidates and totalitarian mentality of this Government named Dr. Garcia Sucre. Venpres tried to lie around the events, but the truth shall make you free reading this blog!

Such is the state of lies and totalitarian attitudes in the Bolivarian revolution.

Today, lawyer Tulio Alvarez presented his final report on the fraud in the recall referendum, the evidence is truly remarkable once the analysis of the telecommunications is included. You can find Alvarez’ full report here, it is quite long and dense, but it has a lot of stuff in it. I am translating a shorter version to post on it and link to it.

But let’s start at the beginning. Alvarez had hired a room at a local hotel (Eurobuilding) to hold his press conference. When the management of the hotel found out what the press conference was going to be about they cancelled, for fear of reprisal from the Chavez Government.

Alvarez had to change to La Piragua a place that is used to hold weddings and other events. Just when the event was about to begin, two or three motorcycles with two guys riding them showed up and began throwing tear gas bombs at the crowd. This delayed the beginning of the press conference for obvious reasons.

Alvarez then began his press conference. During his whole talk, he had as a background a movie taken at one of the secret data centers used by the CNE and the Government on August 15^th. to interfere with the results of the recall vote. The video consists of a complete and detailed movie of every single piece of equipment at the data center, including front and back, serial numbers, brand names and model numbers. Most of the equipment was not only computing equipment, but also telecommunications equipment. (We hope to have the video or parts of it on the Internet next week) Alvarez also showed bills to PDVSA for some of the equipment found in the room. These were not old PDVSA systems, many were brand new. He also showed a letter from the CNE saying the equipment will be removed and sent to Pasadena, California (??).

Alvarez went beyond that, he also named the operators of the center, four Mexicans and one Chilean as well as every single member of the military that was involved in the center. He showed copies of the passports of these people. He called on the Ministry of Defense to explain what exactly these officers have been assigned to in the last few months.

There are two main new and strong charges by Alvarez, which I will detail as I have time:

-The voting machines, besides being connected to the CNE were connected to three secret data centers. Each voting machine had an IP number assigned and they have copies of all of the data traffic that went through the CANTV farm servers during the recall day. With this, they could reconstruct where the data was going to and the IP numbers of the computers at the three centers. These three centers were located at the Universidad Bolivarian, Ministry of Science and a building in downtown Caracas at the esquina del Chorro. There was incoming and outgoing data from and to the machines all day on August 15^th. , this has all been quantified, measured and even read.

-Using the information from the data traffic, some of the scientific studies that I have mentioned and other methods, they were able to determine that all methods point to 18% of the voting machines being tampered with, this represent 2.55 million votes in those centers in which the No option received 68% of the vote. All methods point to the same machines. From this they were able to reconstruct the true results of Aug. 15^th and yes, the Si won.

Alvarez said the data will be available to any group that wants to look at it and challenged anyone to show his conclusions are incorrect.

I will try to report summarize in the next few days as much as I can of these reports.

Finally, while the press conference was preceded by two different acts of intimidation, it closed in an amazing case of abuse of power when the live broadcast of Tulio Alvarez’ press conference, which was only being broadcast by on TV station, was interrupted by a an impromptu press conference by none other than CNE Director Jorge Rodriguez. The announcement was essentially irrelevant; he came on nationwide TV to say that he will propose on Monday to the full board of the CNE that the day of the regional elections one box from each voting center be counted. This was a proposal made by the opposition and has yet to be approved, so clearly the whole purpose was to block the transmission of Alvarez’ press conference. Rodriguez even took questions from reporters, something eh seldom allows.

This is the pseudo-democracy we are living in. One in which intimation is the rule of the day, where Government officials abuse their power for political gain, using free air time only given to the Government to block the presentation showing that they are a bunch of crooks. But the saddest part is that despite the seriousness of the charges, neither the Attorney General nor the People’s Ombudsman has or will do anything about it, despite the severity of the charges presented.

Today, lawyer Tulio Alvarez presented his final report on the fraud in the recall referendum, the evidence is truly remarkable once the analysis of the telecommunications is included. You can find Alvarez’ full report here, it is quite long and dense, but it has a lot of stuff in it. I am translating a shorter version to post on it and link to it.

But let’s start at the beginning. Alvarez had hired a room at a local hotel (Eurobuilding) to hold his press conference. When the management of the hotel found out what the press conference was going to be about they cancelled, for fear of reprisal from the Chavez Government.

Alvarez had to change to La Piragua a place that is used to hold weddings and other events. Just when the event was about to begin, two or three motorcycles with two guys riding them showed up and began throwing tear gas bombs at the crowd. This delayed the beginning of the press conference for obvious reasons.

Alvarez then began his press conference. During his whole talk, he had as a background a movie taken at one of the secret data centers used by the CNE and the Government on August 15^th. to interfere with the results of the recall vote. The video consists of a complete and detailed movie of every single piece of equipment at the data center, including front and back, serial numbers, brand names and model numbers. Most of the equipment was not only computing equipment, but also telecommunications equipment. (We hope to have the video or parts of it on the Internet next week) Alvarez also showed bills to PDVSA for some of the equipment found in the room. These were not old PDVSA systems, many were brand new. He also showed a letter from the CNE saying the equipment will be removed and sent to Pasadena, California (??).

Alvarez went beyond that, he also named the operators of the center, four Mexicans and one Chilean as well as every single member of the military that was involved in the center. He showed copies of the passports of these people. He called on the Ministry of Defense to explain what exactly these officers have been assigned to in the last few months.

There are two main new and strong charges by Alvarez, which I will detail as I have time:

-The voting machines, besides being connected to the CNE were connected to three secret data centers. Each voting machine had an IP number assigned and they have copies of all of the data traffic that went through the CANTV farm servers during the recall day. With this, they could reconstruct where the data was going to and the IP numbers of the computers at the three centers. These three centers were located at the Universidad Bolivarian, Ministry of Science and a building in downtown Caracas at the esquina del Chorro. There was incoming and outgoing data from and to the machines all day on August 15^th. , this has all been quantified, measured and even read.

-Using the information from the data traffic, some of the scientific studies that I have mentioned and other methods, they were able to determine that all methods point to 18% of the voting machines being tampered with, this represent 2.55 million votes in those centers in which the No option received 68% of the vote. All methods point to the same machines. From this they were able to reconstruct the true results of Aug. 15^th and yes, the Si won.

Alvarez said the data will be available to any group that wants to look at it and challenged anyone to show his conclusions are incorrect.

I will try to report summarize in the next few days as much as I can of these reports.

Finally, while the press conference was preceded by two different acts of intimidation, it closed in an amazing case of abuse of power when the live broadcast of Tulio Alvarez’ press conference, which was only being broadcast by on TV station, was interrupted by a an impromptu press conference by none other than CNE Director Jorge Rodriguez. The announcement was essentially irrelevant; he came on nationwide TV to say that he will propose on Monday to the full board of the CNE that the day of the regional elections one box from each voting center be counted. This was a proposal made by the opposition and has yet to be approved, so clearly the whole purpose was to block the transmission of Alvarez’ press conference. Rodriguez even took questions from reporters, something eh seldom allows.

This is the pseudo-democracy we are living in. One in which intimation is the rule of the day, where Government officials abuse their power for political gain, using free air time only given to the Government to block the presentation showing that they are a bunch of crooks. But the saddest part is that despite the seriousness of the charges, neither the Attorney General nor the People’s Ombudsman has or will do anything about it, despite the severity of the charges presented.

Busy tonight will not be able to post much, just some tidbits from the news, that I would like to talk about given the time:

—Eight of the nine accused in Tachira state for rebellion were found guilty and given different sentences of up to six years in jail. The eight were found guilty of rebellion and sedition when the day after Chavez resigned they went to the Governor’s house demanding his resignation. They had no weapons, which is a requirement for sedition and the Supreme Court ruled in the case against six Generals that there was no rebellion that day but a “power vacuum”.

This is obviously a political case against these eight leaders of the social Christian party COPEI. They become now eight more political prisoners of the Chavez administration.

The biggest mystery in all this is how the man that came on TV General Lucas Rincon who said Chavez had resigned and was a prisoner is never called to declare in any of these trials. Lucas Rincon was then the minister of Defense, went home after the announcement and resurfaced as Chávez’ Minister of the Interior a few months later.

–Governors and Mayors from the opposition proved the lies of CNE Directors when they said the reason for the missing addressees of voters was the difficulty in given them in poor areas and claiming this was an old problem. The mayor of Chacao showed that 98% of those with problems are newly registered voters. The Mayors and Governors handed in 28 boxes with the evidence showing that 1.8 million voters lack an address. They managed to do this, despite the effort by the National Guard to block their access to the CNE headquarters. The Guardsman Captain told a reporter that if she reported what he tried to do in blocking them “they will promote me”. Check Daniel’s blog for more on this issue.

–Media owner Marcel Granier said upon exiting from testifying about his visit to the Presidential palace on April 13^th. 2002 that “there is a massacre taking place against freedom of speech in Venezuela”. In today’s Tal Cual , Editor Petkoff outlines how the vagueness of the content law make any act as simple as an opinion or showing a movie a violation subject to shutdown of the TV station or newspaper.

–The Government condemned the destruction of the Columbus statue on Tuesday, but said nothing about withholding funding from aporrea.org which not only promoted the action, but its is proudly taking credit for it. Ironically, new Minister of Information Izarra was the one that coordinated the funding of aporrea.org from his prior position at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. He did not say whether additional protection would be given to the replica of Columbus’ ship which floats at the lake in Parque del Este. There have been suggestions in pro-Chavez pages that they will now go after it.

–Tomorrow, lawyer Tulio Alvarez will present his final report on the fraud during the recall vote in August. The evidence is overwhelming and will surprise. In any other country what will be presented tomorrow would lead to the resignation of the President and the Electoral Board. Pay attention in particular to all of the data about communications. Truly incredible accusations! Should be at the center of the news for the next few weeks. I will report on it as the data becomes available and will summarize the report tomorrow.

Busy tonight will not be able to post much, just some tidbits from the news, that I would like to talk about given the time:

—Eight of the nine accused in Tachira state for rebellion were found guilty and given different sentences of up to six years in jail. The eight were found guilty of rebellion and sedition when the day after Chavez resigned they went to the Governor’s house demanding his resignation. They had no weapons, which is a requirement for sedition and the Supreme Court ruled in the case against six Generals that there was no rebellion that day but a “power vacuum”.

This is obviously a political case against these eight leaders of the social Christian party COPEI. They become now eight more political prisoners of the Chavez administration.

The biggest mystery in all this is how the man that came on TV General Lucas Rincon who said Chavez had resigned and was a prisoner is never called to declare in any of these trials. Lucas Rincon was then the minister of Defense, went home after the announcement and resurfaced as Chávez’ Minister of the Interior a few months later.

–Governors and Mayors from the opposition proved the lies of CNE Directors when they said the reason for the missing addressees of voters was the difficulty in given them in poor areas and claiming this was an old problem. The mayor of Chacao showed that 98% of those with problems are newly registered voters. The Mayors and Governors handed in 28 boxes with the evidence showing that 1.8 million voters lack an address. They managed to do this, despite the effort by the National Guard to block their access to the CNE headquarters. The Guardsman Captain told a reporter that if she reported what he tried to do in blocking them “they will promote me”. Check Daniel’s blog for more on this issue.

–Media owner Marcel Granier said upon exiting from testifying about his visit to the Presidential palace on April 13^th. 2002 that “there is a massacre taking place against freedom of speech in Venezuela”. In today’s Tal Cual , Editor Petkoff outlines how the vagueness of the content law make any act as simple as an opinion or showing a movie a violation subject to shutdown of the TV station or newspaper.

–The Government condemned the destruction of the Columbus statue on Tuesday, but said nothing about withholding funding from aporrea.org which not only promoted the action, but its is proudly taking credit for it. Ironically, new Minister of Information Izarra was the one that coordinated the funding of aporrea.org from his prior position at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. He did not say whether additional protection would be given to the replica of Columbus’ ship which floats at the lake in Parque del Este. There have been suggestions in pro-Chavez pages that they will now go after it.

–Tomorrow, lawyer Tulio Alvarez will present his final report on the fraud during the recall vote in August. The evidence is overwhelming and will surprise. In any other country what will be presented tomorrow would lead to the resignation of the President and the Electoral Board. Pay attention in particular to all of the data about communications. Truly incredible accusations! Should be at the center of the news for the next few weeks. I will report on it as the data becomes available and will summarize the report tomorrow.

Busy tonight will not be able to post much, just some tidbits from the news, that I would like to talk about given the time:

—Eight of the nine accused in Tachira state for rebellion were found guilty and given different sentences of up to six years in jail. The eight were found guilty of rebellion and sedition when the day after Chavez resigned they went to the Governor’s house demanding his resignation. They had no weapons, which is a requirement for sedition and the Supreme Court ruled in the case against six Generals that there was no rebellion that day but a “power vacuum”.

This is obviously a political case against these eight leaders of the social Christian party COPEI. They become now eight more political prisoners of the Chavez administration.

The biggest mystery in all this is how the man that came on TV General Lucas Rincon who said Chavez had resigned and was a prisoner is never called to declare in any of these trials. Lucas Rincon was then the minister of Defense, went home after the announcement and resurfaced as Chávez’ Minister of the Interior a few months later.

–Governors and Mayors from the opposition proved the lies of CNE Directors when they said the reason for the missing addressees of voters was the difficulty in given them in poor areas and claiming this was an old problem. The mayor of Chacao showed that 98% of those with problems are newly registered voters. The Mayors and Governors handed in 28 boxes with the evidence showing that 1.8 million voters lack an address. They managed to do this, despite the effort by the National Guard to block their access to the CNE headquarters. The Guardsman Captain told a reporter that if she reported what he tried to do in blocking them “they will promote me”. Check Daniel’s blog for more on this issue.

–Media owner Marcel Granier said upon exiting from testifying about his visit to the Presidential palace on April 13^th. 2002 that “there is a massacre taking place against freedom of speech in Venezuela”. In today’s Tal Cual , Editor Petkoff outlines how the vagueness of the content law make any act as simple as an opinion or showing a movie a violation subject to shutdown of the TV station or newspaper.

–The Government condemned the destruction of the Columbus statue on Tuesday, but said nothing about withholding funding from aporrea.org which not only promoted the action, but its is proudly taking credit for it. Ironically, new Minister of Information Izarra was the one that coordinated the funding of aporrea.org from his prior position at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. He did not say whether additional protection would be given to the replica of Columbus’ ship which floats at the lake in Parque del Este. There have been suggestions in pro-Chavez pages that they will now go after it.

–Tomorrow, lawyer Tulio Alvarez will present his final report on the fraud during the recall vote in August. The evidence is overwhelming and will surprise. In any other country what will be presented tomorrow would lead to the resignation of the President and the Electoral Board. Pay attention in particular to all of the data about communications. Truly incredible accusations! Should be at the center of the news for the next few weeks. I will report on it as the data becomes available and will summarize the report tomorrow.

A group of people that lives in the Salias municipality right outside of Caracas went today to the Electoral Board (CNE) to inform them that they had held a Citizens Assembly according to Article 70 of the Venezuelan Constitution and that the 4,000 people at that assembly had voted to open all of the electoral boxes on Oct. 31^st. They presented a document outlining how this ill be done and said they did not need the approval of the CNE, because of said article, combined with Art. 5 of the Constitution, which says that sovereignty is exercised directly and is not transferable from the people. The group encouraged other municipalities to follow suit.

This is article 70 of Venezuela’s Constitution, which was the cornerstone of Chavez’ much ballyhooed “participative” democracy which has now been set aside:

Artículo 70. Son medios de participación y protagonismo del pueblo en ejercicio de su soberanía, en lo político: la elección de cargos públicos, el referendo, la consulta popular, la revocatoria del mandato, la iniciativa legislativa. Constitucional y constituyente, el cabildo abierto y la asamblea de ciudadanos y ciudadanas cuyas decisiones serán de carácter vinculante, …

Article 70. The means of participation and protagonism of the people in the exercise of its sovereignty on politics are: the direct election to public office, the referendum, popular consultation, revoking mandates, legislative initiatives, Constitutional and Constituent, town halls and citizens assemblies the decisions of which will be binding….

If more municipalities imitate Los Salias, it will be interesting to see how the CNE and the Government approach the issue. I really don’t believe they want to open all of the boxes, much like they did not want to open them for the August. 15^th.  recall vote. It could be dangerous to go to the Supreme Court since the Electoral Law is so clear in saying that all of the boxes have to be opened. Thus, I suspect the CNE will simply block people from doing it on Oct. 31^st. or postpone the vote.