The news agency Associated Press (AP) processed more than 24,000 images of polling station records in Venezuela from last month’s presidential election and concluded that Edmundo González, the main opposition candidate to Bolivarian dictator Nicolás Maduro, “won a significantly larger number of votes in Sunday’s elections.” [28 de julho] than the government claimed, casting serious doubt on Maduro’s official declaration of victory.
The minutes were published by María Corina Machado, an opposition politician who was prevented from running for president by the dictatorship. To circumvent the regime’s constant attempts to block candidates aligned with Machado, her party (Plataforma Unitária Democrática, PUD) nominated González at the last minute.
The minutes include the results of 79% of the ballots and allowed the AP to tabulate 10.26 million votes.
According to the agency’s calculations, González won 6.89 million votes, almost 500 thousand more than the electoral authority rigged by the dictatorship claims that Maduro obtained. In these 24,532 records, the dictator received 3.13 million votes.
The authority, the National Electoral Council (CNE), said Maduro received 6.4 million votes and González 5.3 million with 96.87% of the ballots counted.
The AP said it was able to recover information from 96 percent of the published records; the rest of the images were too poor quality to process. The records have long been considered the main proof of authenticity in Venezuelan elections. The agency said it had only processed the images and could not independently confirm their authenticity.
The Bolivarian regime escalated violence against its opponents after the publication of evidence of electoral fraud. The PUD headquarters was attacked in the early hours of the morning and its walls were smeared with black paint. The vandals broke down doors and also stole valuable documents and equipment. Opponents have been arrested.
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