In the early 2000s, when Chavismo had just come to power, its leaders feared that the opposition would plot fraudulent maneuvers for the elections. Then, in agreement with other political forces, it launched an automated voting system to avoid cheating. Now, two decades later, and with Chavismo controlling the National Electoral Council (CNE), that same tool emerges as a window of hope for the opposition, which believes it has enough support to win the Presidency. Several experts agree: automated voting does work, at least on paper. The united candidacy of Edmundo González and María Corina Machado hopes that this will happen on July 28, the day that could mark the end of 25 years of Chavista governments.
At first glance, such confidence seems like excessive optimism. Apart from controlling the CNE, Chavismo has undertaken all kinds of maneuvers to discourage electoral participation and often threatens to lose social benefits if its candidates are not voted for. However, according to the experts consulted, the technological system can be a great ally to avoid fraud. Each machine prints certificates before sending them to the CNE. This may be the key to determining who is the true winner of the elections in which Edmundo González faces the president, Nicolás Maduro.
An uphill road
The opposition has already overcome several significant obstacles. Polls show that votes for María Corina Machado, the winner of the opposition primaries in October and disqualified in January, have successfully shifted to Edmundo González, a diplomat who was almost unknown until a few months ago. The challenge now, however, is to ensure massive participation on Sunday – voting is optional in Venezuela. Manuel Camilo González, an expert in electoral systems and professor of International Relations at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, explains by phone that low turnout usually benefits the regimes in power and their electoral machines, which are well-oiled with greater resources. “With lower participation, the people who go out to vote are their hard core, which they mobilize with coercion and clientelism,” says the expert.
In this context, the government has managed to limit the number of migrants who go to the polls. According to data collected by the Efe agency, there are only 69,000 people eligible to vote abroad. This is a residual number within a diaspora of seven and a half million people, of which around five million are adults. For example, Colombia and Peru have more than four million displaced people in recent years, but only 7,000 and 600 people are eligible to vote, respectively. The opposition has denounced that the registration process was short, poorly publicised and full of legal barriers to hinder the process. Chavismo understands that those who have left the country are critical of its management.
Eugenio Martínez, a Venezuelan journalist specializing in election coverage and director of the Votoscopio portal, comments via video call that there are also some negative indicators regarding the updating of the electoral rolls within the country —citizens must register to vote and keep their data updated—. “Most of the movements were made to voting centers that have historically voted in favor of the Government,” says the journalist. There are also 1,700 new centers with only one table. For the expert, this is worrying because it is these small locations that usually concentrate the greatest number of complaints of vote buying and irregular extension of voting hours.
The sophistication of machines
The opposition’s strong point is the voting platforms, which over the years have acquired all kinds of devices to prevent fraud. There is a biometric identification of voters and, according to Martínez, the system prevents the CNE from knowing how each person voted by separating the data of the citizens and the votes. In addition, after voting, a paper certificate is printed that the voter verifies and deposits in a ballot box – part of which is then reviewed manually. At the end of the day, the machine first prints a record with the result – in front of electoral witnesses – and then sends the data by telephone or satellite to the computing center. Martínez points out that there is no risk of an electrical failure affecting them, since they have batteries that ensure their autonomy.
The experts consulted agree that the problem is not in the voting platform, which has become the opposition’s great guarantee. “Although it is often said on social networks that machines change votes or that the identity of voters can be massively usurped, audits “They have shown that this does not happen and that it would be easy to denounce if it did happen,” says Martínez. Griselda Colina, former substitute rector of the CNE and current director of the Global Observatory of Communication and Democracy, says something similar: “The regime wanted to create a strong electoral system so that no one could cheat them. It is so robust that it has allowed one side and the other to win elections. If it could alter votes, how is it that Chavismo lost in the legislative elections of 2015?”
Both experts point out that the reliability of the machines does not mean that the CNE is not co-opted by Chavismo and can announce an invented result. However, they trust in the efficiency of the verification mechanisms and emphasize that it is important for citizens to know that they can participate in the counting carried out by the machines. “When the president of the table closes the voting, a counting record is printed that has a QR code. People can see the results and votes in the voting machine. [además de los testigos] “You can enter and capture the code to have greater control of the result,” Colina explains in a video call. These records, the expert points out, will then have to be verified with what the electoral authorities announce: “We have to demand that the CNE break down the results of each electoral center and each table in order to verify them.”
Uncertainty
There are several additional obstacles that may arise during the election day and that foster uncertainty. Experts mention the irregular extension of voting hours in Chavista areas, episodes of violence in districts more aligned with the opposition and the operation of checkpoints of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the ruling party, in the vicinity of the premises. Professor González also comments that the Government could ignore the result if it is adverse and judicialize the process, as it did with the 2021 Barinas elections – they were repeated in 2022 and the opposition won again. The CNE, for its part, could announce a government victory without the breakdown by table that facilitates verification, as it did in the elections for the National Constituent Assembly in 2017 and in the referendum for the annexation of Essequibo, which had participation figures that were not very credible.
Experts differ in their degree of optimism. Professor González points to the precedents and believes that the government can provoke situations of violence that sow doubts about the legitimacy of the vote. Journalist Martínez, for his part, agrees that these types of scenarios can occur, but he emphasizes that the reliability of the machines reduces the risks of fraud of the magnitude that Chavismo would require. “Manipulation based on institutional control only works when the difference between the two candidates is not so wide.” [los estudios de opinión muestran una brecha de casi 25 puntos]”, he says. Colina, for her part, is the most optimistic: “Chavismo is thinking about its future and next year’s elections. [legislativas y regionales]. They will see how to stay alive and not lose everything.”
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