Venezuela’s opposition bloc is boycotting a special audit of the tallies of the vote that failed to recall strongman Hugo Chavez, citing “mathematically impossible” results.
“Opposition legislator Nelson Rampersad said the opposition coalition had discovered major anomalies in the tally sheets produced by the touch-screen voting machines (SAES 3000),” the Miami Herald reports. Chavez officially won with more than 59 percent of the vote.
The Carter Center said its “quick counts” matched the government’s National Electoral Council tally that made Chavez look like the victor.
Venezuela’s opposition says the results on the electronic voting machines were rigged.
“In 25 percent of the results for the state of Aragua, for example, the number of YES votes produced by at least two machines in one polling station were either identical or nearly identical, Rampersad said, suggesting that voting machines had been tampered with. He showed reporters a tally sheet showing the anomalies, but offered no other evidence,” says the Miami Herald.
“‘This is mathematically impossible,’ he asserted. In other cities and states, the Democratic Coordinator claims, the pattern of identical or nearly identical YES votes repeated, reaching 40 percent in the western state of Zulia,” according to the Herald.
Source:
Richard Brand, “Untried Fla. vote device to be tried in Venezuela,” Miami Herald, April 20, 2004, as part of package from Rep. Carolyn Maloney to Treasury Secretary John Snow, May 4, 2006.
1. Letter_to_Sec_Dep_Treasury_CarolynMaloney.pdf
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