The Devil's Excrement

Most people assume (or presume) that my disagreement or that of others to the Chavez Government is based on objections to the economic policies of the Government. To me what Chavez is doing on the economy is really not that different to what has been happening in Venezuela since 1958, if not longer. Populism has been the rule of the day in Venezuela for a long time. State capitalism was the norm, not the exception, to the democratic era that started in 1958. Of the last five Presidents, four have had exchange controls. All led to huge corruption, much like today, all led to huge devaluations when oil prices turned down, all led to artificialities in the economy that become harder to resolve as time goes on.

This is not the first Government “for and of” the poor. AD was the party of the people. Luis Herrera was the President of the poor. Jaime Lusinchi was like the average Venezuelan, Caldera II was a Government for the poor and Carlos Andres nationalized the oil and iron industries for the people.

 

On social programs, the Misiones are reminiscent of many things I have seen before. I have read about the �Gota de Leche� de Lopez Contreras, I saw the waste of Larrazabal�s Plan de Emergencia, the failure of Romulo�s agrarian reform, Caldera�s offer to build and give away 500,000 houses in five years, Luis Herrera increased salaries to all when there was 5% unemployment by 40% setting up the first devaluation. Lusinchi had the Modulos in the barrios, a Cuban-less form of barrio Adentro. CAP II had beca salario, beca alimentaria, vaso de leche and they were much like what has happened in this Government they did not have the sustainability required of such programs to really make a difference, neither have the programs that Chavez started in the first three or four years of his Government. In fact, his much ballyhooed Institute for Land is an empty and bureaucratic shell which has taken more away from the farmers than it has given them.

 

In fact, neither Chavez nor any of the opposition self-promoted leaders (much like Chavez) have any form of concrete economic proposal or system to make the Venezuelan economy grow sufficiently to reduce poverty significantly.

 

What I do object and has made me militantly anti-Chavez is his disregard for the law: There is simply no rules of law in Venezuela. There are no checks and balances. Impunity rules. Neither the poor nor the rich can count on independent institutions to defend their rights or their property. The Government determines how judges rule, what prosecutors bring to Court, what the National Assembly decides. Was it better before? Definitely Yes, people quickly forget that Carlos Andres Perez was impeached, something that was only possible because there was a political independent Attorney General that accused him, a Supreme Court that allowed the case to proceed and a Congress with two Chambers that impeached him.

 

None of that exists today. You could show a video of a Government official taking a bribe and the judicial system would protect him. In fact, last week�s murder in plaza Altamira seems to be taking the strange twist that the Attorney general and his office are saying that the murderers caught on videotape, were defending themselves in a legal defense argument reminiscent of the Puente El LLaguno case. In fact, pictures have now been found showing how the pro-Chavez caravan arrived in Plaza Altamira where a crowd of opposition people were protesting. In the following you actually see the murderers getting out of the cars even before they arrive in the plaza:

 

 

All of this comes to mind because there is an extraordinary interview in local paper La Razon with Carlos Escarra. Escarra is a rabid Chavista who says that now the referendum ahs been won, the Government has to initiate these initiatives:

 

-Attack impunity, which to him implies dismounting the judicial system, removing everyone from the Supreme Court, everyone in PDVSA, the Comptroller, the Attorney General and the People�s Ombudsman.

 

-A revolutionary purge so that the Government functions in an honest, efficient, effective manner and at the service of the people. The corrupt of the process have to leave and the corrupt of previous Governments have to go to jail.

 

-Create jobs and increase salaries.

 

-Unify the country.

 

Now, this reads like Chavez� promises when he first won in 1998 anyway, so I wonder what Escarra thinks Chavez has been doing for five years. In fact, Chavez replaced everyone in the Supreme Court, has replaced judges to the point that 60% of the courts are in the hands of temporary judges and packed the Government with his supporters in such a way that if you are not with the revolution, you are not even given service.

 

The most remarkable part of the interview, after saying all decision makers at PDVSA have to be removed is what Escarra has to say about the Comptroller, the Attorney General and the People�s Ombudsman:

 

�The comptroller has become like Rafael Caldera, one does not know if he exists or not and if he exists is to attack silly things and not important matters, this man used to be combative, but even his soul has cooled down�.Mundarain the People�s Ombudsman has devoted his time to international relations, traveling all over the world. I had cases where I would call his office and there was not even the minimal attention to these cases, that institution is a white elephant, an institution placed at the service of the international relations of one person. I a friend of the Attorney General but sincerely he has not been able to manage his office�

 

After reading this, I would love to be able to ask Mr. Escarra why none of this was done in the last five years, why he thinks it will be done now and finally, why does he still believe in Chavez? After all, he sounds like me in his wholesale condemnation of the rule of law and honesty in the Chavez Government.

CNE Director Jorge Rodriguez announced that the difference between the 150 ballot boxes and the machine results was less than 0.02%, the OAS and Carter Center backed the results.

With respect to the opposition claims, Gaviria said that the sample on Sunday was only done partially. He said it was too late at night to do it when polls closed and the military did not give access to the opposition due to “lack of information”. He stated that the CD’s sample is too small (Yes, but is it correct?).

About the coincidences denounced by the opposition, he said that they will study them, but that their controls and audits showed that the results are correct. Looks like nothing will come out of any of this and we will never know the truth. I have to wonder: Why the rush?

CNE Director Jorge Rodriguez announced that the difference between the 150 ballot boxes and the machine results was less than 0.02%, the OAS and Carter Center backed the results.

With respect to the opposition claims, Gaviria said that the sample on Sunday was only done partially. He said it was too late at night to do it when polls closed and the military did not give access to the opposition due to “lack of information”. He stated that the CD’s sample is too small (Yes, but is it correct?).

About the coincidences denounced by the opposition, he said that they will study them, but that their controls and audits showed that the results are correct. Looks like nothing will come out of any of this and we will never know the truth. I have to wonder: Why the rush?

Somebody is lying. Somebody is definitely lying big time and I am not sure which side in this dispute over the fraud is not saying the truth. But the more that one side lies the more, they dig themselves deeper in a hole  from which it will be different to get out of.

This afternoon the Coordinadora Democrática (CD) finally met with OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria and representatives from the Carter Center. There were harsh words at the meeting. Harsh words at the Carter Center for making statements that are exactly the opposite of what Mr. Carter espoused during the Florida election controversy when George Bush edged Al Gore. Tough words on the Brazilian OAS team member who issued yesterday a report, without there being any new information on the possibility of fraud in last Sunday’s recall vote.

At the meeting, the CD presented their evidence for the fraud:

1-On the numerical coincidences in the voting machines, the CD presented Gaviria with 1879 cases in which the number of Si votes repeated in at least two machines. Reportedly, the CD handed Gaviria copies of each of the Actas for each of the machines where the cases were found. In the words of the CD, they did not want to provide a simple electronic file that may contain inaccuracies, thus they presented the specific cases.

They presented some types of cases that I have never seen before. I have discussed previously cases in which the number of Si votes at two or three machines in one mesa are identical. But I also saw:

-A school with two mesas, one with three machines, the other with two. FOUR of them have identical numbers of SI votes.

-A school with two mesas, one with two machines, the third one with one, all THREE have the same number of votes.

I have yet to see an example in which there are three machines, two with identical numbers and the third one is larger than the two identical ones. This is interesting because it makes the probability of this occurring at random even more difficult.

The CD also reported that there were only two states where no cases where reported.

Now, today during the day, Jennifer McCoy of the Carter Center said that there were no more than 402 cases of identical machines which was within what could be expected. The same was said by the OAS observer yesterday linked below. Moreover, CNE Director Jorge Rodriguez during his press conference said that the CNE would present a study that shows that these occurrences were within what could be expected.

Since the CNE has yet to release data at the detail of the machines, the source of the information for Ms. McCoy and the OAS observer has to be the CNE. Since there is an almost factor of five difference between the two, one of the two sides is definitely lying, which one I have no clue. Moreover, if in all pairs of identical numbers the third one is smaller, and then even the 402 cases mentioned by McCoy would be statistically improbable. There is also the possibility that the CNE, OAS and Carter Center are talking about tables (mesas) and not machines, but it would be truly irreponsible to make this mistake at this stage of the game.

2- The second complaint by the CD was that the promise to audit 199 voting centers last Sunday in live audits was never fulfilled and no explanation has been given for this. According to the CD, the audit was supposed tom encompass 20 states, which was reduced unilaterally by the CNE to only 14 states. Of these fourteen states, CD representatives had trouble getting in to the audits in half of the states and were able to participate only in seven of them in the following states: Libertador, Miranda, Zulia, Tachira, Lara, Vargas y Merida.

In the centers that were audited in these seven states, the Si vote obtained 63% of the votes versus 37% of the votes for the No vote. In the preliminary CNE tally Libertador District went 56% to 43.9% for the No, Miranda went 50.1% to 49.9 % for the Si vote, Zulia went 52.0 to 47.9% for the No, Tachira went 50.7% to 49.3% for the Si, Lara went 62.4% to 37.6% for the No, Vargas went 663.9% to 36.1% for the No and Merida went 52.0% o 47.9% for the No.  Thus, the audit had the Si winning easily despite the fact that in five of those seven states the No supposedly won handily. But the CNE says the audit in all 14 states is completely consistent with the final results!

Well, all of these inconsistencies are too large to justify. Somebody is providing data that has been faked simply to make their point. Did the CNE give the Carter Center and the OAS false data on the coincidences? Is the CD lying about the number of coincidences? Is the CNE lying about Sunday’s audits which it has said agreed well? Or is the CD lying about their numbers?

Simply put I have no clue. But somehow the more numbers that are given out in bad faith, the deeper the hole that the liar gets into and the more difficult that it will be to get out of it.  This story is certainly far from over.

Somebody is lying. Somebody is definitely lying big time and I am not sure which side in this dispute over the fraud is not saying the truth. But the more that one side lies the more, they dig themselves deeper in a hole  from which it will be different to get out of.

This afternoon the Coordinadora Democrática (CD) finally met with OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria and representatives from the Carter Center. There were harsh words at the meeting. Harsh words at the Carter Center for making statements that are exactly the opposite of what Mr. Carter espoused during the Florida election controversy when George Bush edged Al Gore. Tough words on the Brazilian OAS team member who issued yesterday a report, without there being any new information on the possibility of fraud in last Sunday’s recall vote.

At the meeting, the CD presented their evidence for the fraud:

1-On the numerical coincidences in the voting machines, the CD presented Gaviria with 1879 cases in which the number of Si votes repeated in at least two machines. Reportedly, the CD handed Gaviria copies of each of the Actas for each of the machines where the cases were found. In the words of the CD, they did not want to provide a simple electronic file that may contain inaccuracies, thus they presented the specific cases.

They presented some types of cases that I have never seen before. I have discussed previously cases in which the number of Si votes at two or three machines in one mesa are identical. But I also saw:

-A school with two mesas, one with three machines, the other with two. FOUR of them have identical numbers of SI votes.

-A school with two mesas, one with two machines, the third one with one, all THREE have the same number of votes.

I have yet to see an example in which there are three machines, two with identical numbers and the third one is larger than the two identical ones. This is interesting because it makes the probability of this occurring at random even more difficult.

The CD also reported that there were only two states where no cases where reported.

Now, today during the day, Jennifer McCoy of the Carter Center said that there were no more than 402 cases of identical machines which was within what could be expected. The same was said by the OAS observer yesterday linked below. Moreover, CNE Director Jorge Rodriguez during his press conference said that the CNE would present a study that shows that these occurrences were within what could be expected.

Since the CNE has yet to release data at the detail of the machines, the source of the information for Ms. McCoy and the OAS observer has to be the CNE. Since there is an almost factor of five difference between the two, one of the two sides is definitely lying, which one I have no clue. Moreover, if in all pairs of identical numbers the third one is smaller, and then even the 402 cases mentioned by McCoy would be statistically improbable. There is also the possibility that the CNE, OAS and Carter Center are talking about tables (mesas) and not machines, but it would be truly irreponsible to make this mistake at this stage of the game.

2- The second complaint by the CD was that the promise to audit 199 voting centers last Sunday in live audits was never fulfilled and no explanation has been given for this. According to the CD, the audit was supposed tom encompass 20 states, which was reduced unilaterally by the CNE to only 14 states. Of these fourteen states, CD representatives had trouble getting in to the audits in half of the states and were able to participate only in seven of them in the following states: Libertador, Miranda, Zulia, Tachira, Lara, Vargas y Merida.

In the centers that were audited in these seven states, the Si vote obtained 63% of the votes versus 37% of the votes for the No vote. In the preliminary CNE tally Libertador District went 56% to 43.9% for the No, Miranda went 50.1% to 49.9 % for the Si vote, Zulia went 52.0 to 47.9% for the No, Tachira went 50.7% to 49.3% for the Si, Lara went 62.4% to 37.6% for the No, Vargas went 663.9% to 36.1% for the No and Merida went 52.0% o 47.9% for the No.  Thus, the audit had the Si winning easily despite the fact that in five of those seven states the No supposedly won handily. But the CNE says the audit in all 14 states is completely consistent with the final results!

Well, all of these inconsistencies are too large to justify. Somebody is providing data that has been faked simply to make their point. Did the CNE give the Carter Center and the OAS false data on the coincidences? Is the CD lying about the number of coincidences? Is the CNE lying about Sunday’s audits which it has said agreed well? Or is the CD lying about their numbers?

Simply put I have no clue. But somehow the more numbers that are given out in bad faith, the deeper the hole that the liar gets into and the more difficult that it will be to get out of it.  This story is certainly far from over.

The Coordinadora Democrática just met with Gaviria and Jennifer McCoy. They are asking for a wider audit. The Coordinadora complained that the pre-agreed live audit was never carried out on Sunday. The CD says that the results do not agree with the exit polls, but were advanced to the international press agencies at midnight (three hours before they were reported). They criticized that before the OAS audit was completed, the Brazilian OAS representative wrote a report saying that things were normal and did not mention the problems reported with the machines. The CD reiterated there are more than 1800 cases of the coincidences among machines, therefore they think that this is so improbable that the OAS can not accept the results as they are being reported. They reminded the Carter Center that in the Florida case, Carter himself said that there should be no rush to judgement and that ALL the ballots should be counted. Why, the CD asked, is this case any different?

The CD gave OAS Secretary Cesar Gaviria, copies of each of the Actas with the numerical coincidences, corresponding to each of the machines. This is what I have been asking for all day. On the audit that was supposed to take place last Sunday, the agreement was that it would happen in all states. It was done in only 14. It had been agreed that it would be done in 199 locations, it was done in only 7 states with presence of CD representatives. In these cases, the Si received 63%, the No received 37%.

So, let’s see us people who are trying to understand if there was fraud or not have some sort of delusional illness, because we do not understand some simple concepts such as:

-The CD asks for an audit and the CNE establishes the rules. That’s like Enron telling Andersen, that it will do the audit for them and it will choose what documents it will investigate or not.

-The CNE, who in the case of the signatures for the recall petition requested an absolutely deterministic procedure of everyone having to show up and certify they had signed, now is happy with a sample of 150 out of the 15,000 or so boxes. CNE Director Rodriguez had refused as too small a sample of 3,000 of the so called same calligraphy forms.

-To make it all worse that sample will be determined at random, the CD can not specify which boxes it was counted. If you really want peace, count them all!

-One of the funniest aspects has to be that this audit is supposed to be non-binding! Now, there is an oxymoronic concept a non-binding audit.

-The algorithm to select the boxes at random is chosen by the CNE, as reader Brunilde suggests, if the CNE knows the seed and the algorithm, the random numbers generated become absolutely deterministic!

-The number of the so called coincidences keeps growing. In Aragua state (a traditional pro-Chavez state, out of the 440 machines, 120 have two machines with the same number. At the Escuela Basica Rosa Amelia Flores in Aragua, all 6 machines showed exactly the same number of SI votes: 114.  In Carabobo state it is 22% of all machines, in Zulia 33% of all machines. In Bolivar state, 62 out of 117 machines have pairs of the same number of votes for the SI. The CD has already documented that 10% of the machines have duplicate Si votes, but the process is not completed.

-Meanwhile, the representative of the observers for the OAS makes statements to the press that he has yet to see this coincidences that everyone talks about, that he studied the tables and so nothing anomalous, demonstrating that the guy that is supposed to be watching over for us has a more limited understanding of the problem than 90% of the readers of this blog.

-Schoen and Penn rather than shutting up, suggest that there are more problems with the vote than with their exit poll.

-The Government denies there was a cap to the number of Si votes, suggesting there is no pattern. Why doesn’t the CNE simply publish all of the results at the machine level and dissipate all doubts? Whi is it taht the CD has had to track down all witnesses in order to get a handle on the information. Is this reasonable?

Each of the bullets above should be sufficient to make anyone paranoid. The fact that all of them are occurring simultaneously and nothing is being done about clarifying or changing any of them, makes me feel like this is an episode of the X-files or The Twilight Zone called “Delusional Probabilities (Invented by Delusi?)” and only those in the opposition are practitioners of that field.

A reader points out in the comments that the story is geting out and there is this article in the International Herald Tribune on the fraud that mentions a place in Valle de La Pascua where the votes were counted and did not agree. I have heard of this and two other cases but so far it was hearsay:

“CARACAS The perception that a massive electronic fraud led to President Hugo Chávez’s mandate not being cut short in the recall referendum on Sunday is rapidly gaining ground in Venezuela. …Evidence of foul play has surfaced. In the town of Valle de la Pascua, where papers were counted at the initiative of those manning the voting center, the Yes vote had been cut by more than 75 percent, and the entire voting material was seized by the national guard shortly after the difference was established.

There is a need to clarify concepts at this time. There is a lot of confusion about statistics, CNE results, coincidences, patterns and what it is that the opposition via the Coordinadora Democrática (CD) is claiming as evidence of fraud. So, I thought I would review the basic facts:

Each voting center had “mesas” or tables. Each mesa consists of volunteer “members” and witnesses, all chosen at random from voter rolls. The members handle the logistics, the witnesses are supposed to be checking that things are done properly and correctly. Both sides had witnesses and members in most tables. There were 8,142 mesas or tables in the country, some did not have the Smartmatic electronic voting machines.

Each voting center  had from one to five tables and each table could have up to three Smartmatic machines (1) to vote in. In each Smartmatic machine, people voted. Ther are two buttons with the possible answers “Yes” and “No” (2) and the voter has to select the answer of his/her choice by touching the correct button. To finish the voter confir her/his choice touching the Vote button (3) on the screen. When the voter touches the “Vote” button, the machine prints a physical ballot (paper ballot) allowing the voter to instantly see if his/her selection was recorded properly. The paper ballot must be deposited into the ballot (4)box , so that poll workers can return the ID card to the voter. The poll workers testify and guarantee that the ballot was introduced in the ballot box.

Sebastian from zonageek has actually downloaded all of the preliminary data from the CNE site and placed it in a .dat file here as an Excel file. Here you can read state by state, school by school, how many tables there were, the number of voters and the number of Si and No votes. However, this table by the CNE does not show the details of the machine vote individually.

At the end of the voting day, after polls closed, the people at each table would gather around, put the ballot box in a plastic bag with a precinct that all would sign and proceed to read how many Si and No votes there were in the Smartmatic machine readout. The Smartmatic machine would print a cover sheet (Acta) that all members and witnesses of the table would sign as confirmation that they agreed with their content. They would all take a copy, one Acta per Smartmatic machine as in the following picture, where I show three Actas from a single mesa, i.e. three Smartmatic machines:

This picture shows one of the cases of “coincidences” what is now being called a “pattern” or irregularity. In this particular case, the number of Si votes is exactly the same in all of the machines at a single table or mesa. As I described last night, such a pattern was first found in Bolivar state by J.J. Rendon, who said on TV he had detected already 24 centers with a problem like that out of the 60 voting centers in Bolivar state, a fairly large proportion.

The case in the picture is an extreme case in which all three numbers for the “Si” vote agree. In most cases, out of three Smartmatic machines, two have the same number (x) of Si votes and the third one a different one (y), but this third number is always less or equal (y<, y=x) than the one the other two had. But the third number (y) is NEVER larger (y>x) than the two identical ones.

Let’s look at what is so improbable about this:

 I) First of all, it is highly improbable that so many coincidences occur. Even if the number of voters were divided evenly between machines, abstention and different voter’s intention would vary the numbers from machine to machine sufficiently that this would be a rare occurrence.

II) If it were a matter of even distribution of voters between machines, then the percentage of equal NO votes in two machines in the same center should be equal to the coincidence of the Yes votes in two machines. No such occurrence has been reported and in all examples I have seen (Something like 15-20 of them) not once did the number of NO’s repeat.

III) But perhaps the most powerful argument is that if this were a matter of probabilities, the third number would be either higher or lower then the two numbers that coincide, much like tossing a coin, half the time above, half the time below. But as far as I know ALL of the cases that have been reported correspond to the third number being less or equal to the two identical ones.

How many cases are there?

Well, this is hard to answer at this time. J.J. Rendon has said 24 of the 60 centers in Bolivar state have the pattern. Enrique Mendoza said that he already had 500 cases documented. Nelson Rampersad said that  25% of all Smartmatic machines, more than 5,000 have irregularities, but he did not specify what these irregularities were. The Governor of Zulia state said that 33% of that state’s 931 tables had irregularities, but once again, he did not clarify if they were these type of coincidence although he did say he had consulted mathematicians and technicians who had told him this was essentially impossible. This suggests he is talking about the same pattern. This alone could be around 1,000 Smartmatic machines in 300 centers.

These are HUGE numbers that have very little probability of occurring, least of all, if they all have the same pattern in which the third number is smaller. I have not been able to confirm this.

What explains the coincidences?

Well, the theory is that they wanted to have the total number of votes be consistent with the final number of voters in each machine. Thus, the machines were somehow programmed with a table, machine by machine, center by center, so that above a certain number any additional Si vote would be assigned to the No’s. Then there were four possibilities: No machine exceeded the number, one machine exceeded the number, two machines exceeded the number or all three machines exceeded the number. Only the last two would be detectable.  Since there are also mesas or tables with one or two machines, these two would also show no significant pattern. Thus, the numbers being mentioned are quite significant and if true, likely to be present in 50% of all machines.

Can it be something else?

Sure it can, some voting machines have been released to the public only to make mistakes the first time they were tested. These machines were never tested before under field conditions, heavy voting and/or long hours of voting.

However, voting machines can be rigged and have a history of being rigged. As this article attests, e-voting is still not tamper proof and manufacturers seem to be after the money and have not made their machines full proof yet. Given the fact that the software was handed out to the CNE, that the machines were programmed and given to the CNE, who in turn gave it to the military, many things could have happened after they were first programmed by the company that made them.

However, one thing is clear, in either case; a proper audit of the printed ballots would show the problems. The CD refused to accept the audit because it felt it should have the right to choose some ballot boxes. This for two reasons, the CNE decided on the algorithm to choose the boxes, this could be as rigged as the original voting machines. The second is that the CD knows where the biggest differences between exit polls and final results are, it could pick those as a testing ground of this possible massive fraud. Thus, if the CNE did not allow for the CD choosing some boxes, The CD could not participate in a process that may become the final nail of its own coffin, unless its conditions were met.

Can the boxes be rigged?

Yes and No. It would be difficult to rig all of them, some 15,000 to 20,000 boxes with 10 million little papers in the correct proportions to match the results in each box. Then they would have to fake the signatures in each precinct. Seems hard. In fact, you could even check for fingerprints in the ballots. If real, they should all have different fingerprints, if faked, pick three at random and the fraud will be revealed.

Conclusion

My own personal opinion is there was fraud and if the CNE people knew about it, the sample is rigged and nothing will be detected in the audit. If none of the boxes are from the cases with coincidences it would generate new doubts about the whole process. If they did not know, tomorrow in the audit, the whole fraud will come out and everything will implode. Beyond that we will be in unchartered territory.

There is a need to clarify concepts at this time. There is a lot of confusion about statistics, CNE results, coincidences, patterns and what it is that the opposition via the Coordinadora Democrática (CD) is claiming as evidence of fraud. So, I thought I would review the basic facts:

Each voting center had “mesas” or tables. Each mesa consists of volunteer “members” and witnesses, all chosen at random from voter rolls. The members handle the logistics, the witnesses are supposed to be checking that things are done properly and correctly. Both sides had witnesses and members in most tables. There were 8,142 mesas or tables in the country, some did not have the Smartmatic electronic voting machines.

Each voting center  had from one to five tables and each table could have up to three Smartmatic machines (1) to vote in. In each Smartmatic machine, people voted. Ther are two buttons with the possible answers “Yes” and “No” (2) and the voter has to select the answer of his/her choice by touching the correct button. To finish the voter confir her/his choice touching the Vote button (3) on the screen. When the voter touches the “Vote” button, the machine prints a physical ballot (paper ballot) allowing the voter to instantly see if his/her selection was recorded properly. The paper ballot must be deposited into the ballot (4)box , so that poll workers can return the ID card to the voter. The poll workers testify and guarantee that the ballot was introduced in the ballot box.

Sebastian from zonageek has actually downloaded all of the preliminary data from the CNE site and placed it in a .dat file here as an Excel file. Here you can read state by state, school by school, how many tables there were, the number of voters and the number of Si and No votes. However, this table by the CNE does not show the details of the machine vote individually.

At the end of the voting day, after polls closed, the people at each table would gather around, put the ballot box in a plastic bag with a precinct that all would sign and proceed to read how many Si and No votes there were in the Smartmatic machine readout. The Smartmatic machine would print a cover sheet (Acta) that all members and witnesses of the table would sign as confirmation that they agreed with their content. They would all take a copy, one Acta per Smartmatic machine as in the following picture, where I show three Actas from a single mesa, i.e. three Smartmatic machines:

This picture shows one of the cases of “coincidences” what is now being called a “pattern” or irregularity. In this particular case, the number of Si votes is exactly the same in all of the machines at a single table or mesa. As I described last night, such a pattern was first found in Bolivar state by J.J. Rendon, who said on TV he had detected already 24 centers with a problem like that out of the 60 voting centers in Bolivar state, a fairly large proportion.

The case in the picture is an extreme case in which all three numbers for the “Si” vote agree. In most cases, out of three Smartmatic machines, two have the same number (x) of Si votes and the third one a different one (y), but this third number is always less or equal (y<, y=x) than the one the other two had. But the third number (y) is NEVER larger (y>x) than the two identical ones.

Let’s look at what is so improbable about this:

 I) First of all, it is highly improbable that so many coincidences occur. Even if the number of voters were divided evenly between machines, abstention and different voter’s intention would vary the numbers from machine to machine sufficiently that this would be a rare occurrence.

II) If it were a matter of even distribution of voters between machines, then the percentage of equal NO votes in two machines in the same center should be equal to the coincidence of the Yes votes in two machines. No such occurrence has been reported and in all examples I have seen (Something like 15-20 of them) not once did the number of NO’s repeat.

III) But perhaps the most powerful argument is that if this were a matter of probabilities, the third number would be either higher or lower then the two numbers that coincide, much like tossing a coin, half the time above, half the time below. But as far as I know ALL of the cases that have been reported correspond to the third number being less or equal to the two identical ones.

How many cases are there?

Well, this is hard to answer at this time. J.J. Rendon has said 24 of the 60 centers in Bolivar state have the pattern. Enrique Mendoza said that he already had 500 cases documented. Nelson Rampersad said that  25% of all Smartmatic machines, more than 5,000 have irregularities, but he did not specify what these irregularities were. The Governor of Zulia state said that 33% of that state’s 931 tables had irregularities, but once again, he did not clarify if they were these type of coincidence although he did say he had consulted mathematicians and technicians who had told him this was essentially impossible. This suggests he is talking about the same pattern. This alone could be around 1,000 Smartmatic machines in 300 centers.

These are HUGE numbers that have very little probability of occurring, least of all, if they all have the same pattern in which the third number is smaller. I have not been able to confirm this.

What explains the coincidences?

Well, the theory is that they wanted to have the total number of votes be consistent with the final number of voters in each machine. Thus, the machines were somehow programmed with a table, machine by machine, center by center, so that above a certain number any additional Si vote would be assigned to the No’s. Then there were four possibilities: No machine exceeded the number, one machine exceeded the number, two machines exceeded the number or all three machines exceeded the number. Only the last two would be detectable.  Since there are also mesas or tables with one or two machines, these two would also show no significant pattern. Thus, the numbers being mentioned are quite significant and if true, likely to be present in 50% of all machines.

Can it be something else?

Sure it can, some voting machines have been released to the public only to make mistakes the first time they were tested. These machines were never tested before under field conditions, heavy voting and/or long hours of voting.

However, voting machines can be rigged and have a history of being rigged. As this article attests, e-voting is still not tamper proof and manufacturers seem to be after the money and have not made their machines full proof yet. Given the fact that the software was handed out to the CNE, that the machines were programmed and given to the CNE, who in turn gave it to the military, many things could have happened after they were first programmed by the company that made them.

However, one thing is clear, in either case; a proper audit of the printed ballots would show the problems. The CD refused to accept the audit because it felt it should have the right to choose some ballot boxes. This for two reasons, the CNE decided on the algorithm to choose the boxes, this could be as rigged as the original voting machines. The second is that the CD knows where the biggest differences between exit polls and final results are, it could pick those as a testing ground of this possible massive fraud. Thus, if the CNE did not allow for the CD choosing some boxes, The CD could not participate in a process that may become the final nail of its own coffin, unless its conditions were met.

Can the boxes be rigged?

Yes and No. It would be difficult to rig all of them, some 15,000 to 20,000 boxes with 10 million little papers in the correct proportions to match the results in each box. Then they would have to fake the signatures in each precinct. Seems hard. In fact, you could even check for fingerprints in the ballots. If real, they should all have different fingerprints, if faked, pick three at random and the fraud will be revealed.

Conclusion

My own personal opinion is there was fraud and if the CNE people knew about it, the sample is rigged and nothing will be detected in the audit. If none of the boxes are from the cases with coincidences it would generate new doubts about the whole process. If they did not know, tomorrow in the audit, the whole fraud will come out and everything will implode. Beyond that we will be in unchartered territory.