Venezuela’s Electoral Council Says Capriles Lacks Proof of Fraud
Venezuela’s Electoral Council Says Capriles Lacks Proof of Fraud
By Chris Carlson
Maracaibo, April 28th, 2013 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) announced yesterday that they would not approve Henrique Capriles’ additional demands for the auditing of the April 14 elections, and explained that he lacks any proof of fraud.
The announcement was made on Saturday night via a televised statement by CNE President Tibisay Lucena.
Lucena explained that the expanded audit process would be carried out as planned, but that the additional demands that the Capriles campaign have made in recent days would not be included.
“It is important to note that the political parties already audited the electoral process at each stage, certifying the integrity and correct functioning of the system,” said Lucena.
“Representatives from each party signed off on each one, as can be seen in the documents on the CNE website…there were a total of 18 auditing processes, but now they are being silenced and ignored in an attempt to discredit the electoral process,” she said.
Venezuela’s electoral process includes extensive auditing throughout the entire process, including audits of the computer software, electoral rolls, machine functioning, finger ink, data transmission, and vote tallying, with the presence of representatives from all political parties.
However, Capriles requested an additional audit after the elections on April 14th, stating that there had been irregularities and that the election had been “stolen”.
After Capriles’ request for an additional audit was approved by the CNE last week, the Capriles campaign began to demand a more extensive audit, including a revision of the electoral rolls, which were already audited before the election.
“We announced the decision for an additional audit and Capriles publicly accepted. But in later statements he and his spokespeople said it was not enough, and that a different kind of audit was necessary,” said Lucena.
“They began demanding things that had already been audited by their own representatives, such as the electoral rolls, as the signed documents from those audits clearly show,” she said.
Lucena went on to explain that the Capriles campaign had the right to formally challenge the election before Venezuela’s Supreme Court. However, they would have to show proof that fraud occurred, something she said was lacking among the evidenced submitted by the Capriles campaign.
“[Capriles’ evidence] does not constitute any proof of how votes were affected, nor how the results could have been affected without it showing up in the vote tallies that were audited in each voting center by party representatives,” she said.
Lucena gave several examples from the evidence submitted by Capriles in which no concrete information was provided so that the CNE could investigate.
Apparently much of the evidence was presented in the same basic format that Capriles used during a press conference last week, in which very general claims were simply printed on sheets of paper.
Lucena said without more specific information there was no way that they could be independently verified, nor could it be confirmed if anyone’s vote was actually affected.
“The documents submitted by Capriles last week do not state clearly and precisely the incidents in which the rules were broken. They do not give the specific voting centers, who was involved, nor what possible damage could have occurred as a result,” she said.
Lucena went on to explain that the additional audit of the remaining 46 percent of ballot boxes will proceed as planned and will begin on May 6th.
Capriles’ Response
Henrique Capriles responded on Sunday to the CNE’s announcement with further criticism of the electoral body.
“It’s impossible for Mrs. Tibisay to do anything against the orders of her political party PSUV. The nation would find out the truth!” he wrote via Twitter.
He also said that he would continue to challenge the election results inside Venezuela, and internationally as well.
“Soon we will have new elections. Every day we are stronger!” he continued.
On Saturday, Capriles affirmed in an interview that he would continue the process before Venezuela’s Supreme Court, and then in international institutions if needed.
“We think Venezuela’s Supreme Court has been converted into a court of the government, but we must exhaust all the institutions before taking it before international institutions,” he said.
Venezuelan Ambassador to the United Kingdom Samuel Moncada said that this stance by the opposition is very similar to the situation before the 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela.
“They are going to say that the CNE ignored them, and so did the Supreme Court, and they are going to take it to the Organization of American States (OAS), but after all the legal mechanisms are exhausted they will try the illegal ones, like calling for a general strike,” he said.
“They will take all legal forms to the limit, like they did in 2002, and try to take the movement to its limit so that the Armed Forces will intervene,” he said.
Published on Apr 28th 2013 at 7.26pm
This work is licensed under a Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives Creative Commons license
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/8905
= new reply since forum marked as read
They caught a few idiots mouthing off but not Capriles himself.
I have listened to the tapes. They do not prove your dishonest allegation.
My motivation is truth. You clearly don't care about the truth and instead would prefer to misrepresent and slander people.
My response to you was simple. They should arrest him if your allegations are true.
Why they would allow him to go free is anyones guess. 
Oh, right, it's all made up bullshit.
beat a path to Tegucigalpa to throw their pasty white, flabby old arms around the super ugly, illegitimate temporary coup president of Honduras.
Here's wee Republican Senator, and p#ick, Jim DeMint, who nearly beat his plane to Honduras as soon as they shot up President Zelaya's house in order to violently kidnap him:
[center] 
"Honduras's interim President Roberto Micheletti, second from right, poses for pictures with Republican Doug Lamborn of Colorado, left, Republican Peter Roskam of Illinois, second from left, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, third front left and Republican Aaron Schock of Illinois, after a meeting at the presidential house in Tegucigalpa, Friday, Oct. 2, 2009.The U.S. senator and the three congressmen met with Micheletti in defiance of official Washington policy barring contact with the architects of the military coup that ousted the nation's president Manuel Zelaya."
Cuban-American right-wing beast, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,
who had to park her ass next to puppet clown Micheletti.[/center]
These assholes had to scorn President Obama's request to stay in Washington, and out of Honduras immediately after the coup. One of the coup leaders also took the time to insult President Obama by referring to him as a "little boy," as you may recall.
Without it it is totally meaningless. Nothing can be cross referenced. Nothing can be proven true. He will not be getting those rolls. If he does then I will be shocked and blown away.
Why don't you go read the Venezuelan Supreme Court ruling about citizen rolls and, yaknow, their usefulness to determine fraud: http://www.tsj.gov.ve/decisiones/scon/Febrero/66-14212-2012-12-0219.html
The crony corrupt Supreme court agreed that the citizen rolls are a fundamental test of the legitimacy of the results. Full stop.
(Note: the opposition burned the rolls immediately after the primaries were complete, because of this very sort of nonsense where the crony Supreme Court could get the rolls so that the chavistas could make another Tascon List. When this decision came down there were no rolls to "deliver."
The Supreme Court decided on that case 2 days after the elections, they won't decide on Capriles' case for months I suspect, and they will decidedly decide against Capriles (proving once and for all how deeply rooted their corruption goes).
