The Devil's Excrement

The Carter Center and the OAS have just announced that there will be an audit tomorrow of 150 voting centes, chosen at random. The random choosing will be done in the presence of observers of the OAS, the Carter Center, the Government, the opposition and the CNE. Then, the ballot boxes with the paper ballots will be picked up at the garrisons where they are being held. They will be taken to the CNE where in the presence of the same observers, they will be counted and compared to the result derived from the readout of the machines as signed and witnessed by those that were present in the voting centers.

It is still not clear to me whether they will check centers or “mesas”. Let me explain, each center had a number of “mesas” or tables. Each table had a number of  “cuadernos” or notebooks, where the list of voters was included. Each cuaderno voted in a single machine. But in the center where I voted, all notebooks from all tables deposited the paper ballots in a single box.

Carter was very emphatic that they trusted the results, but had requested this to dissipate any doubts. However, a reporter was very sneaky at the end and he fell for it. She asked that what assurance did we have that the ballot boxes themselves were not tampered with. He said that the was sure the military was taking proper care of them. However, there have been reports, some of them visual, that there are boxes in palces likeGovernment offices. In one case, some guy at the office said he was “guarding it” there. Well, so much for Carter’s assurance.

Two separate people on TV are reporting that in some voting centres, there are strange coincidences in the total number of Si votes. In one center with nine lists of voters, three lists had 117 SI votes, three had 127 votes and three had 133 votes. In a different center, all nine had exactly the same number of Sí votes. The theory that is being proposed is that the voting machines were programmed not to exceed a certain number and anything above was added to the No vote to make the total coincide with the number of voters. There is still now word on whether the paper ballots are going to be counted or not.

It has been a long three days. I have had so little sleep it is absolutely ridiculous. I have tried as much as possible to report the facts as they happened, interpreting little, as writing when you are tired and emotional is always dangerous, unless you are writing poetry.

At this point I have to accept that we lost. Until I see a piece of paper showing that the machines and the paper ballot were inconsistent, there is little that I can say. Do I think there was fraud? If only one exit poll existed, performed by a flight by night operation, I would say there was no chance. If I did not know people directly that participated in them, I would say no chance. But the truth is that there were at least three exit polls, one of them performed by US firm Penn, Schoen and Berland. All three were consistent. And my friends involved in the exit polls are very adamant today. So I have to be suspicious at a 17% margin of error in the exit polls. But I can not go beyond that. I can not accuse, I can only ask for more explanations.

What is amazing to me is that such doubts could be quickly removed from all of us by some simple audits. By tomorrow night all doubts could be dissipated if the CNE made this a priority. And if they don’t, people will get even more suspicious. For the sake of our future, I hope they do it and everyone can be sure about what happened. Either way.

It has been a long three days. I have had so little sleep it is absolutely ridiculous. I have tried as much as possible to report the facts as they happened, interpreting little, as writing when you are tired and emotional is always dangerous, unless you are writing poetry.

At this point I have to accept that we lost. Until I see a piece of paper showing that the machines and the paper ballot were inconsistent, there is little that I can say. Do I think there was fraud? If only one exit poll existed, performed by a flight by night operation, I would say there was no chance. If I did not know people directly that participated in them, I would say no chance. But the truth is that there were at least three exit polls, one of them performed by US firm Penn, Schoen and Berland. All three were consistent. And my friends involved in the exit polls are very adamant today. So I have to be suspicious at a 17% margin of error in the exit polls. But I can not go beyond that. I can not accuse, I can only ask for more explanations.

What is amazing to me is that such doubts could be quickly removed from all of us by some simple audits. By tomorrow night all doubts could be dissipated if the CNE made this a priority. And if they don’t, people will get even more suspicious. For the sake of our future, I hope they do it and everyone can be sure about what happened. Either way.

Unfortunately, now there is more bloodshed associated with the election. Some people were protesting in Plaza Altamira this afternoon when some cars and motorcycles showed up with supposedly pro-Chavez supporters. These three guys are seen shooting in this image. Eight people were injured including Solidaridad Deputy Ernesto Alvarenga

Now I understand a little better what Carter and Gaviria said. Let me explain. You vote in an electronic machine. At the end of the day the machine has a total that is transcribed and then transmitted to the CNE. There were three exit polls performed and there were various quick polls performed.

In an exit poll you ask voters how they voted. In the quick poll you check that the total at the machine level is the same registered at the CNE after transmission. What the Carter Center did was quick polls and they say they coincide with the results. Moreover, Carter said that Sumate also did a quick poll and it also coincides with the results, although the difference is smaller.

What does not coincide is that the results of the three exit polls does not correspond to what the quick polls say in the sme centers. Supposedly, 1% of the machines were going to be checked manually, by counting the paper ballots printed by the machines when you voted and comparing with the results of the machines. This was not done. There is a 15-18% difference between the two types of poll.

All exit polls agree with each other within error. The CD is asking that 2-3% of the polling stations be checked and the number of paper ballots coincide with the results of the machines. Thus, if fraud took place it took place at the machine level.

If this is not done within the next two days, this will simply remain a mistery for years to come. For the peace of mind of the country the CNE should do this and if possible do all polling stations to remove any lingering doubts.

(Daniel has a graph of the voting process explaing the various steps)

Carter and Gaviria speaking. Carter says that a quick check his Center performed at the totalization center and at selected voting locations, coincides with the CNE announcement. Gaviria was more careful at the beginning, but later supported the quick count mentioned by Carter. Gaviria said that the opposition should present the cases of fraud it has found and that the OAS with the evidence presented can not say there was fraud, but may later find something else. Carter said that Sumate had an exit poll with No ahead 55% to 45%, but then Gaviria seemed to contradict him saying that it was 52% for the Si and 48% for the NO. Carter more emphatic than Gaviria but both backing the results unless evidence of fraud is presented.

My friends, unles something earth shaking can be proven, we have now to accept the results.

Carter and Gaviria speaking. Carter says that a quick check his Center performed at the totalization center and at selected voting locations, coincides with the CNE announcement. Gaviria was more careful at the beginning, but later supported the quick count mentioned by Carter. Gaviria said that the opposition should present the cases of fraud it has found and that the OAS with the evidence presented can not say there was fraud, but may later find something else. Carter said that Sumate had an exit poll with No ahead 55% to 45%, but then Gaviria seemed to contradict him saying that it was 52% for the Si and 48% for the NO. Carter more emphatic than Gaviria but both backing the results unless evidence of fraud is presented.

My friends, unles something earth shaking can be proven, we have now to accept the results.

Carter and Gaviria speaking. Carter says that a quick check his Center performed at the totalization center and at selected voting locations, coincides with the CNE announcement. Gaviria was more careful at the beginning, but later supported the quick count mentioned by Carter. Gaviria said that the opposition should present the cases of fraud it has found and that the OAS with the evidence presented can not say there was fraud, but may later find something else. Carter said that Sumate had an exit poll with No ahead 55% to 45%, but then Gaviria seemed to contradict him saying that it was 52% for the Si and 48% for the NO. Carter more emphatic than Gaviria but both backing the results unless evidence of fraud is presented.

My friends, unles something earth shaking can be proven, we have now to accept the results.

These are some of the questions made by Tal Cual’s Editor Teodoro Petkoff in today’s Editorial:

CNE Directors Zamora and Mejías made very grave charges, for which public opinions require an explanation. How is it possible that the witnesses of the opposition witnesses (the same with pro-Chávez witnesses, that by the way, not even showed up) did not have access to the room where the results were calculated? How is it possible that no result from the random audit of the voting machines was ever presented? How is it possible that not only could the opposition witnesses not enter, but they never received their badges to be present at the audit? How can they give partial results with having certified the cover sheets of the results? Who computed the final results if the members of the committee that was supposed to do that composed of Jorge Rodriguez, Ezequiel Zamora, Luis Ramirez and Andres Brito, never met? This newspaper that has consistently advocated for the recognition that the parts had to have for the results, can not but express his doubts as well as request, for the same reason, a comparison of the physical vote and the numbers given out by the machines. The country also has the right to ask that the observers of the OAS and the Carter Center evaluate both the process and the results. If not, the suspicion that what happen was nothing but a steal will only become more consistent every day.

 And I would like to add one: How come abstention was in the end 37.5% if CNE Director Rodriguez spent the whole afternoon saying that it would return to historically low levels?