Maduro Opposition Shares ‘Overwhelming Evidence’ of Venezuela Election Fraud
Thousands have been protesting in Venezuela since authorities declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner of Sunday’s election without publishing detailed results of the vote.
The country’s electoral agency, controlled by Maduro loyalists, said on Monday that the incumbent was reelected with 51.2% of the vote. The main opposition party, the Unitary Platform, later released detailed results from more than 24,000 of the roughly 30,000 voting stations across Venezuela, saying they prove Maduro is stealing the election. On Friday, the electoral agency updated its results, increasing Maduro’s vote share to 51.95%.
The opposition data indicates that their candidate, Edmundo González, a stand-in for the widely popular María Corina Machado — now in hiding — won nearly 70% of the vote. On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that, “given the overwhelming evidence” from the opposition party, the US recognizes González as the winner.
Comparing Conflicting Election Results
The opposition party published detailed local figures
| Candidate | Votes | Pct. |
|---|---|---|
| Maduro | 3,241,461 | 30.44% |
| González | 7,156,462 | 67.20% |
Venezuela’s electoral agency posted aggregated totals
| Candidate | Votes | Pct. |
|---|---|---|
| Maduro | 6,408,844 | 51.95% |
| González | 5,326,104 | 43.18% |
Sources: Results published by the Unitary Platform and Venezuela’s electoral agency; OpenStreetMap contributors
Note: Vote totals from the opposition-provided results and shares calculated on the valid votes are as of Aug. 2. Parish-level data was accessed on July 31 and Aug. 1. Government-issued maps of parishes are not available. This map uses boundaries from OpenStreetMap, some of which may be out of date. Bloomberg matched about 95% of parishes in the opposition data release to the OpenStreetMap boundaries by comparing the municipality and state for each parish.
Maduro on Wednesday said he would hand over vote tabulations to Venezuela’s top court, also controlled by regime loyalists, for an audit. The website of the National Electoral Council (CNE), where disaggregated results are typically published, has been down since the weekend, which officials blame on a cyberattack.
Venezuela’s election laws require the CNE to publish detailed voting tabulations within 30 days following the official declaration of results. In previous elections, the CNE has usually done so within hours, with the exception of last year’s referendum over the disputed Essequibo territory and after a 2017 vote to choose members of a Constituent Assembly. This week, CNE only published top-level results that showed a Maduro win.
Meanwhile, detailed vote receipts, made available by the opposition party from more than 80% of polling stations, show a landslide victory for González, with nearly 7.2 million votes to Maduro’s 3.2 million. While incomplete, these results align with exit polls by US-based Edison Research and projections from AltaVista, a research group that studies elections.
The opposition data was sourced through a network of witnesses and citizen observers, who took images of vote tallies at polling stations, and stayed to monitor the counting process after polls closed. Their results were posted online.
The opposition achieved something extraordinary with their website, said Eugenio Martínez, a Venezuelan political analyst and journalist. Even when publishing the table-level results, the CNE has never uploaded the scanned tabulations, according to Martínez.
“The opposition managed to do so in 48 hours, showing that it’s mostly a matter of will,” Martínez said.
Included in the published data are thousands of unique QR codes, used to verify the authenticity of individual polling stations. The QR codes can be seen on the more than 24,000 receipts the opposition party published Monday.
These are two of the receipts:
Source: Results published online by the Unitary Platform
A parish can have multiple voting centers, each containing several voting stations or tables. Here are all of the receipts the opposition party collected in Altagracia parish in the state of Sucre, one of the largest in the country, with more than 65,000 votes cast. The receipts show Maduro was ahead in some polling centers, while the opposition secured victories in others, which is consistent with previous results from the region:
Vote Receipts in Altagracia Parish
21 receipts showing Maduro with the most votes:
83 receipts showing González with the most votes:
Source: Results published online by the Unitary Platform
Note: Records for 95% of parish’s voting tables.
The Carter Center, a US-based group that promotes democratic elections, was also planning to monitor the presidential vote and release its findings. Earlier this week, the organization said it couldn’t verify Maduro’s figures, citing the lack of transparency from the Venezuelan government.
Venezuela’s electoral court is expected to make a decision after analyzing evidence submitted by all the parties, including the government and Unitary Platform. It is unclear how long that process will take and if complete results will be published after a decision is made.
Meanwhile, the Maduro regime has taken a hard line against the opposition and its supporters, with the president saying he was preparing two maximum-security prisons to take in thousands of protesters who would serve at least 30 years. He also said González and Machado “should be behind bars.”