2013 Early Venezuela Presidential Election

[Bacon King]

Calling a surprise victory for Capriles.

[Bacon King]

results ETA: 1 hour

[Bacon King]

This is apparently the opposition's official vote count:

Capriles 7.875.846
Maduro 6.443.874

[Bacon King]

This is apparently the opposition's official vote count:

Capriles 7.875.846
Maduro 6.443.874

where from?

Twitter, came from some sort of opposition figure who's been (probably illegally?) posting results by region as they come in (I assume either the opposition gets access to CNE's count or it's from their own electoral monitors who are, like last time, at every precinct in the country).

[Bacon King]

For the record, CNE officially has to wait until there's an "irreversible trend" in the results before they're publicly released. The fact that they've waited this long and overshot their own time estimates so far either means that:

A) it's extremely close, or
B) Capriles has a lead and they don't know what to do

(or, I guess, C, maybe they just suddenly started to suck at counting votes efficiently since the last election)

[Bacon King]

Official results getting released within 10 minutes, according to some guy on twitter

[Bacon King]

It is 10 PM. So?

Surprisingly, random twitter source was incorrect!

However, here's the latest breaking news from Twitter that I think is much more reliable:

@vmorillo Venezuela rompe record Guinnes de mas gente apretando ese culo por mas tiempo!

[Bacon King]

Maduros 50.66%

[Bacon King]

Capriles is about to address the nation, per his official twitter

[Bacon King]

STOP FIGHTING BATTLES FROM THIRTEEN YEARS AGO AND STAY ON TOPIC GUYS

EL CRISTO DE CHAVEZ

[Bacon King]

Eh, there were significant and documented irregularities in the Florida election (and even then I wouldn't call it "stolen," just not completely fair). The "evidence" here is that it took a while to count the votes and rumors on twitter said the other guy would win. Unless I'm missing something?

The really big question mark for me is Capriles getting summoned to meet with the military brass shortly before the results were announced.

[Bacon King]

EL HIMNO NATIONAL

(wait is anyone else here watching the livestream)

edit- http://www.punditpress.com/2013/04/watch-venezuela-election-results-live.html

[Bacon King]

For the record, the CNE website was shut down all day out of "concerns it would be hacked", so even if results were there its not like anyone could see them.

[Bacon King]

Am I the only one who thinks that their 5 score for political freedoms from Freedom House needs to be improved now that they had a Presidential election with a 1.5 point margin of victory?

Considering the unprecedented issues with this election, I'd say this is the first time they've actually deserved that 5. edit- wait how high does the scale go again?

[Bacon King]

CAPRILES PREPARING TO SPEAK

Livestream: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xio7e2_globovision-en-vivo_news

[Bacon King]

Capriles claiming his people's count is off by 300,000 from the government's count.

[Bacon King]

Regarding the allegations of fraud and its likelihood:

• Over two thousand incidents of irregularities were reported yesterday, including men in PSUV jackets "helping" people cast ballots, forty election-related arrests,  and an incident where soldiers carried away ballot boxes before the paper audit could be done.
• The opposition, which had pollwatchers at every single precinct across the country, reported their vote totals to be a Capriles victory of ~100k votes. This is particularly notable because the opposition's count in October mirrored the CNE's count almost perfectly.
• The extremely suspicious behavior of many in the Venezuelan government and military must also be considered, which has already been noted here.

[Bacon King]

Protests reported today in Caracas and Barinas State, both involving some degree of violent clashes.

[Bacon King]

So, it seems the CNE web page is available - but only from within Venezuela. I wish somebody could tell me exactly what is posted on it.

Are you certain? I'm connected through a Venezuelan proxy right now in an attempt to access the CNE website but the page still refuses to load.

edit, nevermind, switched to a different proxy and it was able to access it. A thorough search revealed that they haven't posted anything about the "verificación ciudadana" (i.e., the manual auditing of 54% of precincts) since they originally announced its implementation back in March.

[Bacon King]

NYT reporting CNE will conduct an audit of voting machines... no independent institutions left in Venezuela, the battle's a political one.

Hmm. Here's a thought:

We know Maduro is obviously the placeholder for the true successor to Chavez, just holding the presidency until the powers-that-be behind the scenes have time to coalesce around someone. Note that the Venezuelan Constitution allows the President to essentially replace the Vice President at will, by the way, so the handover wouldn't even be difficult at all if Maduro doesn't go rogue.

However, with the nuisance that Capriles has been causing and Maduro's increasingly erractic behavior, what if they decide it'd just be simpler to let Capriles win? This full audit might then be intentionally removing the pro-Maduro vote tampering (or, if Maduro's narrow victory was legitimate, fixing the results in favor of Capriles)?

Think about it. The PSUV has a huge majority in Parliament, so Capriles wouldn't accomplish anything. Given the extensive state control over the media, it'd be incredibly easy for the PSUV to drum up public opposition to Capriles and force a successful recall vote whenever they wanted. Maduro was picked as the placeholder because he was considered to be a soft-spoken an capable administrator-- given that he's clearly demonstrated this assessment was inaccurate, is it really a stretch to assume that PSUV leadership would pick a useless Capriles presidency to be preferable to an off-the-rails Maduro?

Not sure I even believe this myself, but it's a thought. It'd also explain why Capriles was summoned to meet with the Generals just before the results were announced, which as far as I know we never got an explanation for.