14 May 2018
Electoral Guarantees: Venezuela vs. the Lima Group
By Fernando Gabriel Luna (Venezuelan journalist)
In the framework of the recently concluded Summit of the Americas, the member countries of the "Lima Group", issued a "new" statement, this time in conjunction with the Government of the United States of America, in which they urge the Venezuelan Government to carry out "elections with guarantees for a free, transparent and democratic process", warning also that they will not recognize the elections, for lacking "legitimacy" and "credibility", if Venezuela does not comply with the particular "scale" applied by this Group, to define what is "legitimate" and "credible".
In electoral processes, it is estimated that a representative sample of audited votes ranges between 3% and 5% of the total universe. In the Venezuelan Electoral System, 54% of the votes are audited, being the only electoral system in the world, in which such a high and disproportionate percentage is applied.
A reader who may not know the political reality of Venezuela, will think that this condition has been the product of pressure exerted by some countries in the region, guarantors of "democracy" and "transparent electoral processes," such as those that precisely conform this Group of supervised governments, however, this is not the case.
Since 2006, in Venezuela more than 50% of the votes have been audited in all the electoral processes carried out up to the present date. In fact, in August 2012, the Director of the Program for the Americas of the Carter Center, Jennifer McCoy, in an interview, about her visit to Venezuela, referring to this point, expressed the following: “Statistically you do not need that much, you can take a random sample with much less, 3% or 4% of the machines, but there was an agreement with the parties and that generates assurance.”
Let's begin to dismantle some of the lies that the spokesmen of this Group proclaim through the media and their constant communiqués, as well as the double standards from their partial view at the Venezuelan political situation as opposed to theirs.
Firstly, we will say that Venezuela is the only country in the region where audits are carried out on the entire electoral process; not only on the votes or polling stations, in addition, these acts are carried out with the participation of all political forces without exception and with the participation of citizens who can observe the transmission of these acts "live". The electoral system in Venezuela has an automated platform that is subject to audits before, during and after each election in order to guarantee and certify the transparency of the process and the integrity of the vote.
What are the audits carried out in any Venezuelan electoral process?
- Audit of the Electoral Registry: Verifies the files of the voter's database, checks if they are registered in the Electoral Registry and if they are qualified voters.
- Audit of the voting software: Guarantees the operation of the computer program.
- Audit of the voting machines: Guarantees the correct identity and functions of each machine.
- Pre-clearance audit of voting machines: Performs a voting simulation with the machines, before sending them to the polling stations.
- Infrastructure audit: Checks the assembly of the machines and their components.
- Audit to the Biometric Identification System: Corroborates that there is no relationship or order between the capture of the fingerprint and the sequence of the votes, guaranteeing the secrecy of the same and the principle of a vote by elector.
- Production audit of the Biometric Identification System: The isolation of the system's equipment is verified and it is confirmed that the electronic signature has not changed.
- Audit to the data transmission network: The telecommunications devices and exclusivity of the network is checked and privacy of the Internet and other intruders is guaranteed.
- Audit of the calculating system: Verifies the record of the data transmissions, time and lapse during which the voting machines were connected to the national calculation server. (After the act of voting)
- Closing audit: Certifies the agreement between votes registered and counted by the voting machines, vouchers and contents in the check boxes. 54.4% of the boxes are audited (public act which is carried out at the national level when closing each voting center, in which the witnesses of the organizations with political aims witness and sign the constancy of the audit carried out).
- Audit of the reports: Backup of the data in case a possible revision of the results arises, then the memories of the machines are formatted to eliminate the possibility of relating the voters with the result, therefore keeping the vote secret.
- Subsequent audit: Recreation of the closing audit, to compare it with the calculation system.
- Audit of electronic ballots: previous verification to confirm that the tactile system works correctly and the votes are attributed to the selected candidate.
- Audit of printed notebooks: Verify that the data of the voters that they contain corresponds with that of the Electoral Registry in each polling station.
- Audit of the indelible ink: Corroborates the reliability of the tub, verifying that the pigment that adheres to the skin cannot be removed by any product.
Based on this, one is left to wonder: Is there an electoral system that offers these guarantees in any of the countries that make up the Lima Group? The final answer is No. In addition to Venezuela, only Brazil has the automated voting system, in fact it was the pioneer country in the region, however, in Brazil the audit does not exceed 10%, and it should be noted that it is not exhaustive, nor rigorous, the number of machines subjected to this process is negligible, something that draws attention when criteria such as "guarantee and transparency" are evaluated.
An uneven balance, in terms of generating confidence in the electorate, based on the control mechanisms of the electoral infrastructure: two countries with an automated system, while in the rest remain with the same obsolete and vulnerable system of ballots and electoral boxes, with minimum audits and in some cases with absence of such audits.
As established by the Venezuelan Constitution, the entire infrastructure, the system and the organization of electoral processes in Venezuela, is in the hands of a National Public Power, independent of the rest of the Powers. That is to say, it does not depend nor is it an appendix of the Executive Power or of civil instances controlled by political parties, as in many of the countries of the region.
If we compare the electoral system of Venezuela and the electoral system in any country in the region, we can demonstrate great differences in terms of credibility and transparency.
Let us choose a country at random - Colombia for example, by virtue of the fact that President Juan Manuel Santos has repeatedly expressed his concern for Venezuela, and has also categorically declared that he will not recognize the results of the elections on May 20, 2018, considering them fraudulent, not transparent, without guarantees, protected by the Executive and other reasons.
But let's talk about the referee, in this case the electoral referee. In Colombia, the entity in charge of organizing elections is the "National Registry of the Civil Status," which is the body where citizens register. The electoral component is comprised of two instances: the Registry and the National Electoral Council. Now, the members of this council are anointed by Congress and chosen by the political parties, in such a way, that it is a politicized organism, without budgetary or institutional capacity, to the point that its payroll is paid by the National Registry of the Civil Status.
The last four elections to the Congress of the Republic in Colombia, (the period from 2002 to 2018), have been stipulated by countless irregularities, among which are: fraudulent accounting of votes, overwhelming differences between voter forms, and alterations of scrutiny, among other irregularities. In the Colombia, the electoral processes are handled by private companies; hence there is no control over the process, nor source code, history or personnel.
Recently, on March 11, 2018, the election was held in Colombia to elect the representatives to the Congress. The closing report of the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE), among other things, determined the existence of purchase and sale of votes (in at least 74 municipalities in 22 departments), insufficient electoral material (the electoral body authorized the use of photocopy of the electoral card), improper indications by the juries to manipulate the vote, not using biometric identification, allowing possible voter impersonation.
Furthermore, after a month of having held these elections, this Mission denounced that to the present date, it has not been able to carry out the audit of the polls of the aforementioned elections. As we can see, this experience does not describe any transparent process in the sister Republic of Colombia. Likewise, none of the Presidents that make up the collective of Lima, has pronounced on this situation, neither the OAS, nor the Government of the United States.
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