The Devil's Excrement

Problem #1: Everybody questions how you ran the election, there are accusations of fraud and manipulation, at least 40% of the population does not trust you or the process you organized. How can you regain the trust of the public?

Solution: You ask everyone about their complaints, make the process as transparent as possible, respect the law and remove all possible steps that give rise to mistrust and improve the process.

Chavista CNE solution: Maintain everything as it is, approve regulations by which machines will once again transmit the information before printing the results in violation of your own regulations, refuse to change the regional electoral boards to make them less partisan and create a position at each electoral center: the “Head” of the center, chosen and paid by you to run each electoral center. This despite the fact that the regulations say that the members of a center will be chosen at random among the voters at that center and that they will organize themselves as they see fit, choosing their own coordinator.

Problem #2: You create a number of committees to study problems. At the end of their period none of them present reports on what they did.

Solution: You make sure they write the report and give them a deadline

Chavista National assembly solution: when only 2 of 88 committees presented their reports, they eliminated 44 of them! At least the percentages improve significantly.

This revolution is so logical, coherent and democratic; you’ve got to love them.

Problem #1: Everybody questions how you ran the election, there are accusations of fraud and manipulation, at least 40% of the population does not trust you or the process you organized. How can you regain the trust of the public?

Solution: You ask everyone about their complaints, make the process as transparent as possible, respect the law and remove all possible steps that give rise to mistrust and improve the process.

Chavista CNE solution: Maintain everything as it is, approve regulations by which machines will once again transmit the information before printing the results in violation of your own regulations, refuse to change the regional electoral boards to make them less partisan and create a position at each electoral center: the “Head” of the center, chosen and paid by you to run each electoral center. This despite the fact that the regulations say that the members of a center will be chosen at random among the voters at that center and that they will organize themselves as they see fit, choosing their own coordinator.

Problem #2: You create a number of committees to study problems. At the end of their period none of them present reports on what they did.

Solution: You make sure they write the report and give them a deadline

Chavista National assembly solution: when only 2 of 88 committees presented their reports, they eliminated 44 of them! At least the percentages improve significantly.

This revolution is so logical, coherent and democratic; you’ve got to love them.

Jorge Rodriguez (The good guy) is one of the academics that has collaborated with Elio Valladares in the problems of numerical coincidences and whose work and interaction showed Prof. Jonathan Taylor that he had not done the proper calculation about these coincidences. Today, he wrote this article in Tal Cual that I thought was worth translating.

McCoy, Taylor et al. By Jorge Rodriguez (El bueno)

Academic publications cite with precision who are the authors of the work, or who is responsible for certain conclusions on the basis of which the paper is written. Let’s say it is a formal way in which you respect copyright. It is not a whim, but a way of achieving recognition (or blame) on whomever it is due. If somebody makes an analysis of Venezuela and says that the number of hospital beds is the highest in the continent, or that our alphabetization level is one of the first of the world, he needs to indicate where the numbers are coming form, if it is something that was determined in a study or if it comes from the statistics Jesse (the Minister) sent.

More to the point, ever since the fraud was perpetrated on August 15^th, Venezuelans have had Mrs. Jennifer McCoy, a Director from the Carter Center, telling them that all of our complaints were groundless.

When in the morning of August 17^th. the numerical coincidences appeared- “The caps” remember that? Mrs. McCoy got rid of us in a few hours with the argument (argument?) that she had consulted the matter to “an independent statistical expert” from Stanford University. She kept us at bay for three more weeks, until at last she told us the name of the expert, a gringo version of the bearded Smartmatic kid. A young statistician, expert in medical applications, that had no clue as to what an electoral notebook was and thought voters were assigned to the lottomachines at the voting centers, according to their time of arrival. This was the “expert” Mr. Taylor of Stanford. Not even Dr. Smith of “Lost in space”. When this expert was confronted by a group of Venezuelan mathematicians, in less than a week he had to admit that his work had “severe errors” and that McCoy’s numbers were “seriously defective”. Later McCoy made him retract, but that is another story.

The other week, Mrs. McCoy came back in style, not against those that exposed Taylor, but against the work of Rigobon and Hausmann (Sumate). This time she resorts to the weakest of practices: that of anonymity. That statistical work-which I must let you know is a travesty, carried out by the Carter Center, has no author. Nobody you can address to point out an error, or to establish a serious dialogue with, only the “authority” of Ms. McCoy in statistics, or even worse, of one of her buffoons. Venezuela claims for seriousness Mrs. McCoy.

Jorge Rodriguez (The good guy) is one of the academics that has collaborated with Elio Valladares in the problems of numerical coincidences and whose work and interaction showed Prof. Jonathan Taylor that he had not done the proper calculation about these coincidences. Today, he wrote this article in Tal Cual that I thought was worth translating.

McCoy, Taylor et al. By Jorge Rodriguez (El bueno)

Academic publications cite with precision who are the authors of the work, or who is responsible for certain conclusions on the basis of which the paper is written. Let’s say it is a formal way in which you respect copyright. It is not a whim, but a way of achieving recognition (or blame) on whomever it is due. If somebody makes an analysis of Venezuela and says that the number of hospital beds is the highest in the continent, or that our alphabetization level is one of the first of the world, he needs to indicate where the numbers are coming form, if it is something that was determined in a study or if it comes from the statistics Jesse (the Minister) sent.

More to the point, ever since the fraud was perpetrated on August 15^th, Venezuelans have had Mrs. Jennifer McCoy, a Director from the Carter Center, telling them that all of our complaints were groundless.

When in the morning of August 17^th. the numerical coincidences appeared- “The caps” remember that? Mrs. McCoy got rid of us in a few hours with the argument (argument?) that she had consulted the matter to “an independent statistical expert” from Stanford University. She kept us at bay for three more weeks, until at last she told us the name of the expert, a gringo version of the bearded Smartmatic kid. A young statistician, expert in medical applications, that had no clue as to what an electoral notebook was and thought voters were assigned to the lottomachines at the voting centers, according to their time of arrival. This was the “expert” Mr. Taylor of Stanford. Not even Dr. Smith of “Lost in space”. When this expert was confronted by a group of Venezuelan mathematicians, in less than a week he had to admit that his work had “severe errors” and that McCoy’s numbers were “seriously defective”. Later McCoy made him retract, but that is another story.

The other week, Mrs. McCoy came back in style, not against those that exposed Taylor, but against the work of Rigobon and Hausmann (Sumate). This time she resorts to the weakest of practices: that of anonymity. That statistical work-which I must let you know is a travesty, carried out by the Carter Center, has no author. Nobody you can address to point out an error, or to establish a serious dialogue with, only the “authority” of Ms. McCoy in statistics, or even worse, of one of her buffoons. Venezuela claims for seriousness Mrs. McCoy.

Venezuela is getting ready to decree that it will be obligatory to use open source software in all Venezuelan public offices. This is not the first time that Chavez threatens with this, in fact his former Minister of Planning Felipe Perez made a priority of this during his somewhat ephemeral and colorless tenure in that position. Chavez said that this is done to attain “national scientific independence”, I wonder if he ever considered this when he destroyed Venezuela’s oil research institute Intevep in what I consider to be scientific genocide. In one stroke, the world’s best research group on heavy crudes was disbanded and shipped abroad so that the country’s competitors would benefit.

I can only ask: What will happen to the Smartmatic machines that are Windows based? Or the fingerprint capture machines that are Windows based? Or to the system for issuing national ID a card which is Windows based? Maybe they will have to be replaced a cost of a zillion dollars, but how can a zillion dollars stand in the way of scientific independence? No?

As my friend B. suggested today in an e-mail to me, why doesn’t Chavez stop selling oil to any country not using open software exclusively? In this way he could get rid of viruses. It would be Venezuela’s contribution to the world!

I agree with Diosdado Cabello, using Linux, Latex and openwin (thanks B.) truly represent “the democratization of the access to information technology and give more power to the people”. I certainly hope the Misniter of Science is installing Unix tonight in her home PC to lead by example.

This is all part of a very special project “Science for the people and without scientists” that the Government has been working very hard at ever since its premier scientist Merentrs accepted a Government position.

Venezuela is getting ready to decree that it will be obligatory to use open source software in all Venezuelan public offices. This is not the first time that Chavez threatens with this, in fact his former Minister of Planning Felipe Perez made a priority of this during his somewhat ephemeral and colorless tenure in that position. Chavez said that this is done to attain “national scientific independence”, I wonder if he ever considered this when he destroyed Venezuela’s oil research institute Intevep in what I consider to be scientific genocide. In one stroke, the world’s best research group on heavy crudes was disbanded and shipped abroad so that the country’s competitors would benefit.

I can only ask: What will happen to the Smartmatic machines that are Windows based? Or the fingerprint capture machines that are Windows based? Or to the system for issuing national ID a card which is Windows based? Maybe they will have to be replaced a cost of a zillion dollars, but how can a zillion dollars stand in the way of scientific independence? No?

As my friend B. suggested today in an e-mail to me, why doesn’t Chavez stop selling oil to any country not using open software exclusively? In this way he could get rid of viruses. It would be Venezuela’s contribution to the world!

I agree with Diosdado Cabello, using Linux, Latex and openwin (thanks B.) truly represent “the democratization of the access to information technology and give more power to the people”. I certainly hope the Misniter of Science is installing Unix tonight in her home PC to lead by example.

This is all part of a very special project “Science for the people and without scientists” that the Government has been working very hard at ever since its premier scientist Merentrs accepted a Government position.

So, Venezuela issues US$ 1.5 billion in a ten year bond in cash and exchange deal with a coupon of 8.5% and a price of 95%. This implies a yield to maturity below Venezuela’s Global 27 bond which is thirteen years longer. The new bond immediately jumps to between 98-99%, the yield settling to where it should be in the country’s curve, giving a tidy profit to those that participated in the deal, particularly the cash part. The deal had changes in deadlines such that some people were left out. Should I think there is something funny about it? Nah! Just the robolution trying to please Wall Street investors. There could never have been any inside information, no way!

What should we call this: Mision Wall Street?

As most Venezuelans, I am a baseball fan, belonging to that peculiar almost religion which is following the Red Sox, but I can’t be very happy at these ESPN’s articles about crime in Venezuela,  I read the sports pages to try to get away a little bit from reality, so it is somewhat depressing to read these three articles: 

–Not safe at home

–A matter of trust

–Dreading the winter ahead

What the articles say is, unfortunately, mostly true, which does not make it any less depressing. If big league players don’t come down for winter leagues because of the articles, the quality of play unfortunately will go down. It is clear who is to blame, but I will not bore saying it again. 

Sumate has written a draft of its report on the very long process that led to the recall vote and the recall itself which you can find here in English. The document has a wealth of information and should be read by those interested in the process. It is well structured and documented. I found particularly interesting the parts about the audits as well as the legal aspects that sometimes are overlooked as to how regulations and laws were violated regularly in the whole process. Some highlights:

-Page 6 and 37: The CNE server was shutdown without explanation at 8 PM Sunday night while the vote was going on, international observers and CNE Directors were barred from entering the totalization room.

Page 7: While at the request of Venezuela’s President each signature in the petition was checked three times, the same Electoral Board that complied with that refused to count manually even a significant fraction of the ballots.

-page 20: The regulations for referendum processes approved last year by the same CNE that organized the recall vote state in its Article 50 that the referendum vote should be manual. Despite this the whole process was automated. Why?

-page 20: The same regulations in Article 55 state that the “Acta” containing the results should indicate the number of valid votes and the number of ballots deposited in the container. This was not done.

–page 21: The law explicitly says that the Electoral registry has to be closed for the 90 days prior to an electoral process. It was opened until 45 days before. Why?

–page 26: According to the referendum regulations the process of requesting a recall vote should take no more than 155 days, it took 362 days.

-page 39: Three days before the vote the “hot audit” by which ballots would be counted at the same time that the machines would print the results, was reduced from 3% of the voting machines to 1% by the Electoral Board. The day before the vote the CNE decided to do it in only 20 of the 336 municipalities in the country, which were part of only 14 states. 192 machines were selected for these hot audits, only 76 were done, of these, the opposition was only present in 27 of them. International Observers were only allowed in ten of them, they raised no alarms about these irregularities.

-page 40: While observers said the audit performed on August 18^th. had only small differences with the machine count, they failed to mention that 19% of the ballot boxes chosen for the audit were either missing or had integrity problems such that they had to be replaced by alternates.

Well, the media is just not letting Jimmy Carter go away, The New York post had an Editorial today, and some highlights (Thanks Ed):

“It is unconscionable,” Carter added, “to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation.”

Oh, really?

Funny, Carter quickly endorsed the results of last month’s recall effort against Venezuela‘s President Hugo Chavez.

Carter’s election observers were supposed to do a wide survey of the more than 20,000 electronic voting machines. Instead, they did only a quick check of a few. Only days later, in the face of major criticism, was an audit made of 150 of the machines — too late to affect any result.

Gov. Bush also gets into the fray saying of Carter’s comments:

“There’s this constant haranguing of nonsense, including by President Carter, which is a huge surprise to me because I have admired his compassionate actions in his post-presidency,” Bush said. “Without talking to a single person, without getting any information, he joins up with the MoveOn.org crowd, and I cannot tell you how disappointed I am.”

And this blog also gave Mr. Carter a hard time; the comments may be as good as the post (Thanks Guillermo):

You should not only complain about the swing state of Florida, when the conditions that you claim do not meet “basic international requirements” exist in many states, including Democratic ones. Focusing only on Republican-controlled Florida might give people the misimpression that you care less about electoral justice, than in getting your own guy into the White House By Any Means Necessary.

LGL comment: They did not do a very good job at monitoring the procedures, and since the government controlled all the options in the game such as deciding not to allow the counting of the paper receipts printed along with the touch screen voting.

F. Toro comment: Well, from a Venezuelan perspective Carter’s little ditty was simply incredible. Not two months ago Carter was signing off on an election run by certainly the most partisan Elections Commission in Venezuela’s history, calling it free and fair, and saying allegations of wrongdoing have to be based on more than a systematic pattern of partisan behavior from the elections authorities…(you should see the crew that ran our referendum – ideological hardliners handpicked by Chavez’s handpicked judges.) Now…this!

Not, of course, that we’re not used to double standards coming from the north. Florida, of course, must have elections authorities purer than the virgin snow…but it’s ok if the barbarians in South America get one of the sides to run their polls…

Sigh…

A. Boyd comment: As everyone knows there is a huge fraud cloud above Chavez’ recent electoral win. The reason is quite simple, the international observers -namely OAS and Carter Center- did not do the job properly nor were they allowed to conduct and control the audits that would have cloaked with legitimacy the end result.

Anne Haight comment: I can’t imagine that anyone is actually impressed by Carter anymore, about anything. His performance in Venezuela was nothing less than grotesque. For him to point fingers at Florida is blatantly partisan, since the sorts of issues he complains about are 1) not confined to the state of Florida, and 2) not confined to one political party.

How can you possibly certify an election when the ruling party doesn’t allow a recount or an independent examination of the ballots? Apparently Carter has some magical ability to do so in places like Venezuela.

Daniel’s comment: It is indeed fitting to observe Carter’observer role observed in turn.

The Florida comments of Carter smack of third world contempt for us in Venezuela who have now to pay the consequences of a failed observation. Regardless of his hurried comments on August 16 at noon (and being contradicted during the press conference by the OAS head, incidentally), the Carter Center appears now to have failed at observing adequately the rigging of the electoral system BEFORE August 15 Venezuelan referendum.

This story will eventually be told, of the spineless Carter Center role in June and July 2004, not to say even encouraging the Venezuelan opposition to “play” the game under the pretense that the Carter Center would ensure a fair result. The governmental electoral abuse was for all to see and the Carter Center cannot not have seen it.

Thus, for one, I am not surprised at the different democratic standards that Carter applies in Florida. If anything I am embarrassed that I have supported him for so long in my blog. Whatever good he did in Venezuela was not only wiped out in a few days, but the peace maker probably left us closer to violence than when he started his “services”.