Venezuela Election Agency to Audit Recall Results, Carter Says [View All]

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Venezuela's National Electoral Council will conduct an audit of Sunday's recall vote on President Hugo Chavez to address opposition allegations of fraud, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said.

Chavez, 50, won the referendum 58 percent to 42 percent, based on 94.5 percent of the vote counted, council President Francisco Carrasquero said at a press conference in Caracas yesterday.

The council will do a manual audit of returns from 150 voting centers and compare the results with those from automatic voting machines, Carter said at a press conference in Caracas. The audit will be monitored by international observers, and officials from the government and opposition, which is led by Miranda State Governor Enrique Mendoza and Julio Borges, national coordinator for the First Justice Party. Carter, who was among international observers monitoring the vote, reiterated his statement from yesterday that the results coincided with observers' own counts. He said the audit should be completed tomorrow or Thursday.

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The opposition was in a shambles after 58 percent of voters in Sunday's referendum rejected a measure to end Chavez's term in office. Some opposition politicians insisted on demanding a recount, but others suggested they accept the defeat and move on.

Addressing opposition charges, the National Elections Council agreed Tuesday to conduct a partial audit of the results, Nelson Rampersad, an opposition representative on the council, told The Associated Press. The U.S.-based Carter Center and the Organization of American States were to help with the audit, he said. The audit will compare the results produced by touch-screen voting machines and paper receipts of each vote at 150 polling stations, Rampersad said. No date for the audit was set.The audit came at the request of the OAS and Carter Center, the OAS official said. Earlier Tuesday, OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria said an audit would help calm the country.

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