Venezuela Reported False Election Turnout, Voting Company Says
2, 2017
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — The Venezuelan government reported false turnout figures for its contentious election over the weekend, announcing a tally
that had been altered by at least one million votes, a software company involved in setting up voting systems for the country said on Wednesday.
"It is, therefore, with the deepest regret that we have to report
that the turnout figures on Sunday, 30 July, for the Constituent Assembly in Venezuela were tampered with." Venezuela’s opposition sidestepped the criticism by Smartmatic that it had not participated in the vote or the monitoring of it.
The company, she said, only provided "certain services
and technical support which did not determine the result." She added, "This shows an unprecedented state of siege underwritten by strategy to destroy electoral institutions and impede the election of a National Constituent Assembly." The vote has been widely condemned by Venezuela’s neighbors as a power grab for Mr. Maduro’s leftist movement.
Jennifer McCoy, a political scientist and former director of the Americas program of the Carter Center, an election monitoring group, said
that while the government had faced criticism for using state money to appeal to voters during elections in the past, it had never been accused by a voting systems company of directly tampering with the result.
Smartmatic said that We know, without any doubt, that the turnout of the recent election for a National Constituent Assembly was manipulated,
On Wednesday, Smartmatic said that although Venezuela’s election process includes "a series of auditing systems"
that are "impossible to circumvent," no election monitors from the opposition were present to watch for evidence as it came in.