Economists Call on Media to Report "Overwhelming Evidence" Regarding Venezuelan Election Results

[Judi Lynn]

Economists Call on Media to Report "Overwhelming Evidence" Regarding Venezuelan Election Results
June 7, 2013

Allegation that election was stolen “is simply not believable in the face of the actual evidence.”

For Immediate Release: June 7, 2013
Contact: Dan Beeton, 202-239-1460

Washington, D.C. – Fourteen economists and other academics have written an open letter to the media calling for the reporting of “overwhelming statistical evidence” that shows that Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro won the April 14 elections as verified by Venezuela’s electoral authorities. The economists, who include James K. Galbraith of the University of Texas and Robert Pollin of the University of Massachusetts, point to a statistical analysis of the initial audit of 53 percent of votes as irrefutable proof that Maduro won the election, but the media’s failure to report this fact could mean that “many if not most Americans believe that the election was stolen or that the result is somehow in question.”

The letter cites three “uncontested facts” about Venezuela’s electoral process and the audit: the existence of both electronic records and paper receipts of voters’ choices; the completion of the initial audit of 53 percent of votes on election night in the presence of [tens of thousands] of witnesses; and the fact that this audit found no discrepancies between the electronic vote tally and paper receipts. The letter notes that this allows for a simple statistical analysis of the audit, which shows that “the probability of getting the audit result of April 14, if in fact opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski had received a majority of the votes, is far less than one in 25 thousand trillion.”

The full letter follows.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 7, 2013

An Open Letter to the Media:

As economists and statisticians who have used and taught statistics and probability theory, we want to call attention to the clear statistical evidence regarding the results of Venezuela's presidential election on April 14th, which leaves no room for doubt about the result.

According to what we understand to be uncontested facts, as presented by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Venezuela's election process has the following characteristics:

1) The voting is done by machine, with a paper receipt which the voter then places in a sealed box, allowing for a complete paper record of the machine count.

2) Immediately after the polls close, 53% (20,825) of the machines are chosen at random, the paper receipts are counted, and the two tallies are compared. This is done in the presence of witnesses from all sides.

More:
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/economists-call-on-media-to-report-qoverwhelming-evidenceq-regarding-venezuelan-election-results

[GoneFishin]

1. We should be so lucky to have such a high integrity voting system.

Ours is a joke compared to that.

[Oele]

2. As far as i understand it, there are two things that can be audited:

(1) the paper receipts, to verify that the "count" done by the machines is correct;

and

(2) the "voter records", "voter rolls", "poll books" or whatever they are called, to verify that everybody voted just once and that nobody who isn't supposed to vote (like dead people) has voted.

The opposition & supporters are asking for an audit of (2) and and the government & supporters never give an answer other than that audit (1) has shown that the election system is working fine.

The CEPR article is either biased or just very old because it doesn't even mention the request for (2) and it seems to focus on whether the remaining 46% of (1) should be recounted - which is something that has already be decided on long ago.

Instead of arguing forever about whether an audit makes sense or not, they might as well just do the full audit including (2). It would end this pointless discussion and give whoever "wins" the election a lot more credibility than Maduro has now.

[Socialistlemur]

3. That's an excellent point

We have to factor the government's desire to bury this controversy versus the opposition's need to keep it alive. The government mishandled the political crisis. I think they know there was some cheating because they didn't purge the voter rolls. But it's hard to tell what really happened unless they have a full audit as you mention.

The Venezuelan government is earning a reputation as an outlaw in the sense that they don't seem to follow their own law. They make it up or they ignore it. This makes Venezuela a place where doing business requires connections and size. Thus we see big players like Chevron and Odebrecht get into huge deals, but it's impossible for a little guy to contract to clean pipes or something which involves dealing with the foreign exchange system.

I think eventually they'll either get rid of Maduro or kick him upstairs to serve as high priest of a Chavez cult, and have a technocrat run things. But they won't do very well on the current path, it's really irrational.

[reorg]

4. I can help you

First, "audit" as a general term could be applied to pretty much anything. Far more things than you suggest could be "audited" and indeed they are in Venezuela. There are several audit procedures regarding the machines and software used before any election, for instance. All parties can and do participate.

As part of this comprehensive audit system, a "partial" audit of 53% of ballot boxes, randomly chosen, takes place after every election. Statisticians have shown, as asserted in the OP, that it is not necessary to do a "full" manual recount. It is not necessary to count ALL the ballots by hand in order to make sure mistakes did not occur. That's why only a "partial" recount is carried out, and that's why it is nonsense to call for a "full" recount of 100% of the ballot boxes, as the ex-candidate of the opposition did:

Venezuela's electoral authority on Thursday night said it will audit the remaining 46 percent of the ballot boxes that were not audited in the wake of Sunday's presidential election. ...

Capriles, alleging irregularities in the polls, rejected the results and demanded a recount of all votes, a call echoed by the United States and the Organization of American States.

The opposition leader said later Thursday that he accepted the electoral authority's decision to audit the rest of the votes cast on Sunday. He said he believes that the votes "stolen" from him were to be found among those to be audited.

http://english.sina.com/world/2013/0418/583463.html

“El comando Simón Bolívar (comando de campaña de la oposición) acepta lo que el CNE en cadena de radio y televisión ha anunciado al país. Vamos a estar ahí en la auditoría”, dijo Capriles en una rueda de prensa tras el anuncio del CNE.

“Nosotros consideramos que en esas 12.000 cajas (que finalmente se abrirán en la auditoría) están los problemas. Perfectamente, nosotros podemos demostrarle al país la verdad” ("We believe the problems are in these 12,000 boxes (which will finally be opened in the audit). Perfect, we can show the country the truth&quot , dijo el opositor, que también felicitó a sus seguidores por haber “luchado” para que se diera esta decisión del CNE.

http://www.nacion.com/2013-04-19/Mundo/Consejo-Nacional-Electoral-de-Venezuela-autoriza-auditoria-del-100--de-las-urnas.aspx

Mr Capriles said that he would appreciate a "full recount" of all ballot boxes, because he believed that the votes "stolen" from him were to be found in those 47% ballot boxes not yet audited. So the CNE complied with his wish. Despite the fact that his demand was unnessary and only caused a lot of work for a lot of people.

Mr Capriles also made some other demands, though, that were not granted by the CNE. Such as "verifying all signatures and fingerprints" in the books (cuadernos de votación).

This demand was obviously not meant to be taken seriously and nobody does, except for propagandistic purposes. There are about 15 million signatures and fingerprints in those books. Even the most superficial "verification" process, let's assume it might take 10 minutes, would keep thousands of auditors occupied for months: comparing the fingerprints in the books with the database of fingerprints and/or another fingerprint taken from the respective person and, in addition, comparing all the signatures with another signature of the same person. That's not something you "just do" in order to keep crybabies happy.

The CNE explained publicly on TV as well as in writing that such a verification process is not part of the audit process. In addition, they explained that Capriles' complaints were too unspecific. If he actually has proof of irregularities, he should provide it and, in any case, the avenue of taking his accusations to court remains open.

[Socialistlemur]

5. Maybe they can spot check for dead people voting

I read somewhere there was high suspicion dead persons voted. And of course there are simple measures to do spot checks, for example I would check all places where turnout was excessive. I got the feeling there is too much pleading an audit can't be carried out when it's evident it can. They are being obtuse. Or maybe Maduro did lose?

[reorg]

6. Yeah, you "read somewhere" and you "believe"

blah, blah, blah.

Go spread your blather elsewhere.

[Oele]

7. It was on El Universal.

http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/130603/those-who-died-voted-in-venezuela-in-2010-2012

http://devilsexcrement.com/2013/06/02/the-dead-voted-massively-last-october-in-venezuela/

[Judi Lynn]

8. Two virulently anti-Chavez sites, for chrissakes.

El Universal's owner, Andres Mata, participated in the coup.

From earlier days at D.U.:

We've all known about Andres Mata, who runs El Universal, for years.


He was one of the media co-conspirators in the coup. Did you imagine we'd be ignorant about it? He met extensively with other coup-enabling media owners/publishers/editors prior to the coup.

Found a quick reference mentioned in a thread posted all the way back in 2004, from Indiana Green:
IndianaGreen (1000+ posts) Tue Nov-30-04 12:17 AM
Response to Reply #71

El Universal is a rightwing newspaper
which played a key role in the US-sponsored coup:

Led by Cisneros, the media group, which also included Andrews Mata, owner of El Universal, Venezuela's other major daily, met with self-proclaimed interim President and big business mouthpiece Pedro Carmona on Saturday April 14, as demonstrators were pouring out on the streets of Caracas demanding Chávez' return. Flanked by one of the generals who had installed him in the presidential palace only a day earlier, Carmona asked the media bosses for help.

They obliged: shortly thereafter, the news blackout, which had started the night before, became total. Neither El Universal nor El Nacional published their Sunday editions. Globovisión's Ravell reportedly even called CNN's Atlanta headquarters to ask, in vain, that the U.S. network join the news blackout.

Venezuelans with access to cable and satellite — mostly the rabidly anti-Chávez middle and upper classes, the 20 percent not living in abject poverty — were thus able to find out that the coup was failing without leaving their homes. The poor had to go out on the streets to find out, which made them angrier — some attacked TV stations and newspapers — and probably accelerated Chávez' restoration, which happened early last Sunday.

More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x26268#26397

[Oele]

9. Let's try to focus on the article rather than on who owns the paper :)

They actually posted the list with 90 dead voters they found.

It would be interesting to see if we can reproduce what they did..

I found the voters data on the CNE site, but i haven't been able to find the INE data they're talking about. Does anyone know where to find it?

CNE data: http://www.cne.gov.ve/web/registro_electoral_descarga/abril2012/nacional.php

[Judi Lynn]

10. "Let's" not be rabid. You've got the wrong group. n/t

[naaman fletcher]

11. Correction, 90k

But here is how the Chavistas work:

Any information printed in a right wing paper can be outright dismissed.

Any paper that would print something damaging to the Chavistas is by definition a right wing paper.

Therefore, there is nothing ever bad to say about the Chavistas that is true.

This is literally how they think.

[reorg]

13. and here is how the right-wing propagandists work

they swallow every little lie spread by the crypto-fascists hook line and sinker and then act outraged if someone points out the bias of their sources, LOL.

[naaman fletcher]

14. Not at all

In fact, two days after the election most of us anti Chavistas publicly said here tha capriles was wrong and making a fool of himself.

[reorg]

15. Yeah right,

and 90 k dead voters cast their ballot for Maduro. It must be true since it is an extrapolation of a lie that El Universal reported. Not one of you checked if there is any substance to it, of course, as I expected.

[naaman fletcher]

16. I didn't assert anything

Just corrected the reported number from 90 to 90k.

It looks from your other post that is an error and its a BS story.

That's good.

[joshcryer]

25. Yep, we repeatedly say that.

And reorg repeatedly brings up quite literally this same argument. Almost word for word.

It's about principle reorg.

[naaman fletcher]

17. Correction of correction

It was only 90 individuals in your article. I stand corrected on my correction.

[reorg]

12. Cheap lies

If you had taken the trouble to check on the claims made in this little propaganda piece you could have easily found out for yourself that it is the same bullshit as they were spreading after the last election.

Yes, it is unfortunate that the dead are not quickly purged from the voter rolls. But the rolls are updated routinely and regularly. As it stands, the CNE needs the help of volunteers, relatives who report that people have died. So, it does happen that dead people are found on the rolls. Not necessarily a problem, since election workers, witnesses, and the much-maligned fingerprint system help to prevent abuse nevertheless.

Regarding the claims made in the article: nice list, BTW, I can make that too with Excel. It is claimed that "someone in El Universal took the trouble to check how many dead voters were registered in the 48 mesas where 100% of the voters cast their ballot last October". Here is the list of those dead voters:

http://images.eluniversal.com/2013/06/01/difuntos-elecciones.pdf

Above the first table, it says "ELECCION PRESIDENCIAL DEL 7 DE OCTUBRE". Okay. Now, let's take the first entry:

CEDEÑO JESUS ALEXI, SUCRE, BERMUDEZ, SANTA ROSA. The author apparently claims this person is dead but still listed on the voter roll of a district which reported that 100% of the voters cast their ballot. Obviously, if this were true, it would mean that even this dead person would have had to cast his vote somehow.

So, let's go now to the CNE site with the results of the presidential election in October for

EDO. SUCRE - Municipio: MP. BERMUDEZ - Parroquia: PQ. SANTA ROSA:

http://www.cne.gob.ve/resultado_presidencial_2012/r/2/reg_170302.html

There is a list of 19 Centros de Votación. On average, the voter participation (votes cast) was 77,77%. I clicked through all nineteen voting centers, not one of them reported that 100% of the voters cast their ballot. The highest number is 91%, the lowest 58%. For each voting center, you will also find the results of the individual tables (mesas) if you click on the links in the left margin. I clicked through all of those, too. Not a single mesa where 100% of the voters cast their ballot. We don't know in which polling station and which mesa CEDEÑO JESUS ALEXI was listed, but it doesn't matter. The claim by El Universal is simply false.

They misinterpreted the term "ELECTORES EN ACTAS TRANSMITIDAS" (which is always 100%) as meaning "votes cast", when in fact the votes cast are listed in the lines "ELECTORES ESCRUTADOS" and "PARTICIPACIÓN RELATIVA". You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see it, but the El Universal reporter apparently didn't want to.

Feel free to check on the other 89 dead names and polling stations. We'll see what you find out.

[Socialistlemur]

18. I think they should hire you to do the audit

This is precisely what needs to be done. A government with a bit of,common sense gets 50 individuals, 25 from each side, to audit these log books and the deceased. Capriles turned in what he thought were suspect cases. Ask him to list the 1000 thousand he wants to highlight. Working in teams, the 50 individuals make 25 teams of 2. They have 40 cases each to investigate. Lets say they take one hour each case for a preliminary investigation, then they meet and decide as a group whether it has merit or not. This means the first 1000 claims can be handled and reported in say 2 weeks.

So why all the name calling and insistence the audit can't be done? One would think a government with a president who barely got half of the vote, with a National Assembly where his party has a majority but got it thanks to gerrymandered districts, and also barely got half of the vote, if that, with a crumbling economy, food shortages and a lot of crime, plus a president who is evidently barely able to do the job, would try to be conciliatory and defuse the crisis. Instead or we read is talk about becoming even more extreme, the president spends half his time overseas getting photographs with other leaders, and there's no active movement in the National Assembly to legislate at all. How many laws have these guys passed? How many officials of senior rank have been confirmed? Zero. Time goes on, and it doesn't get better, guys. Cut out the instigation of conflict and try to solve problems.

[reorg]

22. Try facebook

or maybe the Yahoo boards. Plenty of idiots might be interested in your drivel.

[Socialistlemur]

27. Facebook is Big Brother

I don't use those social networks. They are a means for governments to track what I'm up to, and besides how many Lemurs am I going to meet there?

[joshcryer]

26. They obviously don't trust their own system.

There probably are cracks and they're afraid to let the world see them.

Hell, just doing the math, tens of hundreds of registered voters who voted in 2012 were murdered before they could vote again in 2013...

[Oele]

19. I was just pointing to the article with the dead voters story.

I also said that i wanted to verify it, but couldn't find all the data.

The Centros de Votación are numbered. The "Código del centro de votación" in the PDF matches the number in the URL on the CNE site.

This is the Centro de Votación (#170302001) of CEDEÑO JESUS ALEXI:

http://www.cne.gob.ve/resultado_presidencial_2012/pp/12/reg_170302001.html

And here is this persons Mesa (#2) within that Centro:

http://www.cne.gob.ve/resultado_presidencial_2012/lvg/33/reg_170302001021.html

As you can see this mesa does have a 100% PARTICIPACIÓN RELATIVA.

There's an explanation for this in the comments of devilsexcrement.com though: it seems that centres with manual voting always report 100% participation.

See also: http://www.noticierodigital.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=14795292#14795292

[Socialistlemur]

20. It's very simple, instead of complaining so much, do the full audit

It seems to me there's a lot of time and energy wasted trying to prove why the vote should not be audited, when it would be such a simple matter to have the audit performed. By now it has been two months and all I read is excuses. Meanwhile, I understand the legal claim by Capriles is languishing in legal limbo with the Supreme Court. Evidently it isn't such a simple issue because they haven't answered, right? Venezuela impresses me as a country with adhoc rules, adhoc justice, adhoc governance, all of which lead to lousy results. They are sitting on an economic crisis, are becoming a joke, and don't even seem to understand they have to divorce Maduro from Chavez, rather than have Maduro behave as if he were following orders from Chavez.. What's wrong with the guy?

[reorg]

21. Yes, it's an error

it says 421 votes have been counted, 407 of which were valid, of a total of 569 eligible voters on the list, duh.

So, was the dead voter on the list one of those 138 who voted for Capriles, one of those 269 who voted vor Chávez, one of those who voted invalid or maybe, just maybe, among those 162 voters on the roll who DIDN'T vote, I wonder?

Why on earth should the CNE take the likes of you seriously?

[Oele]

23. I'm a bit curious where you read that i think that the El Universal story is correct.

I even posted why they were wrong.

The CNE doesn't have to take me seriously - i don't live in Venezuela.

But i do get the impression that a significant part of the population of Venezuela has serious doubts about the election results.

Maybe i'm wrong and i only get that false impression because i read right-wing fascist virulently anti-Chavez propaganda sites.

And maybe you're wrong because you only read left-wing chavista sites and government propaganda.

I don't know the truth. It looks like both sides are making things up. If they do a full audit, we might find out what the real story is.

[Socialistlemur]

24. Exactly, do the full audit and get it over with

They are making another mistake now, the Supreme Court isn't ruling on the Capriles claim. I'm going to speculate and wonder if Cabello isn't holding a card in his sleeve, he could get the Supreme Court to rule for the audit and this puts the Maduro/Cuban faction in a pickle? The Mario Silva tape makes it clear somebody is after Cabello....it could be the Cubans?

[reorg]

28. "i read right-wing fascist propaganda sites"

Well, then maybe you should go back there and explain to your friends how El Universal is wasting their time.