The Devil's Excrement

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.

Three of the men that participated in the shootout Monday that left one dead and eight injured were captured today by the Sucre municipality police together with the intelligence police. Hopefully, this crime will have no impunity and the people will be jailed for life.

Three of the men that participated in the shootout Monday that left one dead and eight injured were captured today by the Sucre municipality police together with the intelligence police. Hopefully, this crime will have no impunity and the people will be jailed for life.

While the local media identifies the guy who found the inconsistencies in the final result of the voting as a political analyst, apparently he is a Statistician from Venezuela who lives in Mexico, where he works on political analysis for campaigns and elections.

He claims to have found in Bolivar state at least 24 of 60 centers in which two or three machines have the same number of SI votes as I described in a previous post. Moreover the same characteristics have been appearing on other states like Lara, Miranda and Zulia.

He claims he does not know why this happens, but there is a pattern with a cap and the cap varies from table to table. Once the SI reaches a value, you have two tables with that value and the third always with a lower value. Rendon, who just appeared on local TV being interviewed, said this pattern is “improbable, practically impossible”. He said this is not a doubt, this is proof. He claims the only way to find out the truth will be to recount all ballots.

He said Smartmatic may not have known about the problem. He also said what is different about his study is that he did not sample; he looked at all the centers and all of the details in each center.

Rendon said that this is a proof that something was not working properly and if the ballots agree with this, it proves nothing. It simply means it was done properly. He suggests that the President himself should request that it be checked since he would be the one that is most affected. He thinks the Democratic Coordinator should look into it and concentrate on a single message about this improbable coincidence.

While the local media identifies the guy who found the inconsistencies in the final result of the voting as a political analyst, apparently he is a Statistician from Venezuela who lives in Mexico, where he works on political analysis for campaigns and elections.

He claims to have found in Bolivar state at least 24 of 60 centers in which two or three machines have the same number of SI votes as I described in a previous post. Moreover the same characteristics have been appearing on other states like Lara, Miranda and Zulia.

He claims he does not know why this happens, but there is a pattern with a cap and the cap varies from table to table. Once the SI reaches a value, you have two tables with that value and the third always with a lower value. Rendon, who just appeared on local TV being interviewed, said this pattern is “improbable, practically impossible”. He said this is not a doubt, this is proof. He claims the only way to find out the truth will be to recount all ballots.

He said Smartmatic may not have known about the problem. He also said what is different about his study is that he did not sample; he looked at all the centers and all of the details in each center.

Rendon said that this is a proof that something was not working properly and if the ballots agree with this, it proves nothing. It simply means it was done properly. He suggests that the President himself should request that it be checked since he would be the one that is most affected. He thinks the Democratic Coordinator should look into it and concentrate on a single message about this improbable coincidence.

Yesterday a group of Venezuelans from the opposition was holding a protest in Plaza Altamira, when a caravan of Chavistas went by, began arguing with the protesters and suddenly began shooting. Eight people were injured and one lady died from the shooting. Alexandra Beech who is visiting, happened to be in Plaza Altamira when this happened, read her report. Chavez blamed the opposition for the violence and even suggested that Globovision happens to be always in the right place. Well, obviously he was badly informed, the video did not come from Globovision. In fact, there are many.

Hopefully, this will not be another case of impunity. The pictures are clear, Globovision even showed on of the individuals in a different pro-Chavez rally. The police have to find these people and convict them. No more impunity. Below all of the pictures, in all their horror and shocking reality.

Last night I said I had not seen evidence of fraud other than the exit polls, well the evidence is now growing. I have now seen evidence that certainly increases my doubts about the whole process. As I reported below, a number of stange coincidences in the results from some voting places make me and anyone with a mathematical mind suspicious. Essentially, the total number of Si’s repeat in each table. That is, a table has one, two or three machines. A surprisngly large number of tables show a pattern in which the number of SI’s is identical and the third table is different. However, the same has not been seen in the No results. The suggestion is that there was a cap placed on the number of Si’s, after which each additional Si was added to the No’s.

Right after this happened, a friend called me and told me she had been a witness at a table in Caracas and had a copy of the results as follows:

Center 38511

Operator DF 133

Cuaderno  1 (Notebook)
Votos 463
SI 356
NO 107

Cuaderno 2 (Notebook)
Votos 454
Si 353
No 101

Cuaderno 3 (Notebook)
Votos 472
SI 356
No 116

This is exactly the same pattern found in the Bolivar results and I have also seen the same in La Candelaria. In Bolivar there is also a center with all three SI’s being the same.

To add to the suspicion, now there are hundreds of people saying that the ballot itself printed by the machine had a number in front of it. In the machines 1 was supposed to be No, 2 was supposed to be Si. Well, some ballots have the code backwards! In a single center, the number switched to 1 after a certain time of the day.

Finally, I want to ask some questions very much like Caracas Chronicles did in this very well written argument:

-Why didn’t the CNE perform the audit of 190 centers as agreed and promised?

-Why didn’t the CNE do an audit of ALL the ballots. In the petition drive to have the referendum all of the people, whose signture was questioned, were forced to go back and say they did sign, ALL of them not a sample.Why only a sample of 150 centers by the same guy who argued that checking the fingerprints of 3,000 people was not significant enough? 

-Why were international observers limited in their action?

-Why was the totalization committee never assembled?

-Why is it that despite the claims during the day that abstention would be at historically low levels, abstention was at historically high levels?

-Is it a coincidence that the Si’s did not exceed the magic number of 3.75 million votes?

-Finally, this may seem to be frivolous, but Primero Justicia party Gerardo Blyde said something today that resonated with me, a Venezuelan that knows how much Venezuelans love to party and celebrate, using any excuse to that end, said Blyde: “In a country where Portugal’s victory in the recent European Cup was celebrated with people taking to the streets, caravans, flag waving and the highways being blocked, can someone explain to us why only fringe groups, the same ones going all over the city, celebrated?”. Well, that is a very good argument to anyone that saw that and wondered (like me) why the hell they were making such a big fuzz about Portugal’s victory. Brazil I understand, but Portugal?

Too many questions at this time. If they are not answered, this country will never find peace in the near future.

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.