Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
04CARACAS2705
2004-08-25 14:41:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Caracas
Cable title:  

ELECTORAL COUNCIL'S SECOND AUDIT BACKS AUGUST 15

Tags:  PGOV KDEM PHUM VE 
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C O N F I D E N T I A L CARACAS 002705 

SIPDIS


NSC FOR CBARTON
USCINCSO ALSO FOR POLAD
STATE PASS USAID FOR DCHA/OTI

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/12/2014
TAGS: PGOV KDEM PHUM VE
SUBJECT: ELECTORAL COUNCIL'S SECOND AUDIT BACKS AUGUST 15
RESULTS; OPPOSITION WORKING TO DOCUMENT FRAUD ALLEGATIONS

Classified By: CDA Stephen G. McFarland for Reason 1.4 (d).

-------
Summary
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C O N F I D E N T I A L CARACAS 002705

SIPDIS


NSC FOR CBARTON
USCINCSO ALSO FOR POLAD
STATE PASS USAID FOR DCHA/OTI

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/12/2014
TAGS: PGOV KDEM PHUM VE
SUBJECT: ELECTORAL COUNCIL'S SECOND AUDIT BACKS AUGUST 15
RESULTS; OPPOSITION WORKING TO DOCUMENT FRAUD ALLEGATIONS

Classified By: CDA Stephen G. McFarland for Reason 1.4 (d).

--------------
Summary
--------------


1. (C) Carter Center and OAS representatives found no merit
in the arguments made by the opposition that the GoV
committed fraud in the August 15 presidential recall
referendum. OAS/TCC reps are convinced the audit of 150
voting tables completed on August 21 was sufficient to
conclude that the alleged fraud was improbable. Gaviria said
the OAS would be willing to review any proof of fraud that
the Coordinadora finds. The Coordinadora Democratica and the
NGO Sumate reject the observers' conclusion and called for
further investigation of the results to clear up doubts. End
summary.

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Carter Center Backs Up Audit
--------------


2. (U) OAS SYG Cesar Gaviria and the Carter Center's Jennifer
McCoy told reporters August 21 that the results of the August
19-21 audit of 150 voting tables were compatible with the
results the National Electoral Council (CNE) had announced.
Asked by reporters about the opposition's allegations of
fraud, Gaviria and McCoy answered that no evidence of fraud
had been found in the audit. The opposition alleges that
President Hugo Chavez and his supporters committed electronic
fraud, involving the use of algorithms to manipulate the
results (septel).


3. (C) Carter Center technical representative Edgardo Mimica
explained to poloff August 21 that for the audit the CNE had
drawn a random sample of 150 of the 12,000 voting tables,
encompassing 354 voting machines. The CNE selected the
sample using its own program and reviewed by the Carter
Center. Mimica called the sample was statistically valid
(nearly 20,000 machines were used in all). Once the tables
for audit were identified, Carter Center and OAS observers
were on-site at 22 regional depots to watch Venezuelan
military officers find the corresponding boxes with the vote
receipts from the table in question. Observers had to resort
to 28 alternate tables where the boxes had been damaged or
could not be readily located.


4. (C) Observers accompanied the boxes to Caracas where CNE
officials conducted the audit, by counting the paper receipts
and comparing the results with the tally sheets emitted by
the voting machines, in the presence of OAS and Carter Center
observers. They also made sure the papers and tally sheets
matched the electoral register which voters signed. Paper
receipts had to be separated by machine because most tables
had only one box for depositing the paper receipts. When the
count was off, they pulled boxes from accompanying tables.
One box, for example, was 50 "no" votes short of what was on
the acta; they resolved it by finding a second box that had
been used (which poll workers had accidentally mislabeled).
Mimica said the audit revealed the voting machines varied
from the paper receipts by only 0.75 votes per machine.
(Note: The Coordinadora chose not to participate in the
audit as opposition leaders were not sure the study would
address all of their concerns.)

--------------
Carter Center Recounts Tabulation Drama
--------------


4. (C) Mimica told PolOff he was present in the CNE control
room just after midnight on August 16 when CNE Director Jorge
Rodriguez invited select international observers to witness
the tabulation around midnight. He said Rodriguez stood at
the door and personally vetted each observer. Mimica was
allowed to pass, but he first had to give his fingerprints.
CNE Directors Mejias and Zamora were present.


5. (C) Rodriguez made a quick speech and then asked a


general for the envelope with the security key, according to
Mimica. Rodriguez opened the envelope and entered the code
to instruct the server that had received transmissions from
the voting machines to run the tabulation program loaded on a
second server. A few moments later, the total showed that
Chavez had won. The calculations took a few seconds, said
Mimica, and the results stunned most of those present.
Mimica said it was as if a bomb had exploded. CNE director
Zamora, he said, turned white. Mimica said Smartmatic
President Antonio Mugica, whose company provided the
electronic voting system, was visibly shocked and asked
whether the results were confirmed by Carter Center's quick
count. Mimica said he declined to respond because he did not
have results yet, but thought it unethical to tell
Smartmatic. Mimica said Mugica would "receive the academy
award" if his surprise at the results was an act.


6. (C) Mimica suspects Rodriguez knew the results before the
dramatic moment and was making a dramatic show of Chavez's
victory in the presence of Carter and Gaviria. No observers
had been allowed in the room all night, he said. He
speculated that it was possible for Rodriguez to have entered
the code and seen the results, then reset the second server.
Alternatively, he posited, Rodriguez could have queried the
backup control room at the Banesco building. Mimica said he
thought it likely Chavez already knew the results before
Rodriguez mounted his show.


7. (C) Mimica does not believe there was fraud. He did not
think it possible to re-program the machines remotely (they
are two-way because the machine has to handshake with the
server). He confirmed that the machines were only plugged in
to transmit the results, which took only a couple of minutes
at the most. He did, however, credit Comando Maisanta
technology chief Nelson Merentes' manipulation of the process
with the Chavez win. Mimica, who was the liaison with
Maisanta during the campaign, said he met with Merentes at
least six times. Merentes bragged beforehand that he had
done a study on how to win the election and had extremely
detailed information on the voting records and tendencies of
every pueblito. Mimica noted that Merentes had been able to
influence the CNE on multiple occasions to make rules that
benefited Maisanta's strategy, for example, trying to
disqualify any poll worker who had signed the petitions in
favor of the referendum. When it became apparent it was too
late to dump the workers and train new pro-Chavez ones,
Merentes focused on changing local electoral boards which
then gave Chavez supporters control over them. Mimica made
clear that Merentes' manipulation was designed to slice off
opposition votes: it may have been highly unethical, but it
did not rise to electoral fraud.

--------------
OAS Convinced of Chavez Win
--------------


8. (C) OAS chief observer Edgardo Ries told Poloffs August 22
he is sure no fraud had been committed. Ries, who has
observed several recent elections in Venezuela, said this one
was "the most transparent" in comparison to others under
Chavez's administration, and certainly better than the 1998
election when Chavez won the first time. There were many
"unjust but not illegal" maneuvers by the GoV, he said, but
they did not need to steal the election. He said it is
"improbable" that the GoV was able to fool the random
selection of boxes audited by OAS/TCC by replacing contents.
He asserted that the GoV would have had to find all the
infected boxes (amounting to 1.5 million votes),count them,
and then replace the "si" votes with the appropriate amount
of "no" votes.


9. (C) Ries said the August 19-21 audit settled the charge
that someone had tampered with the machines because the
random check of the paper receipts found no inconsistencies.
He also said it was improbable the military would have had
time to change the contents of the boxes in the three days
between the election and the audit. He discounted opposition
allegations that algorithms to change the results were


imbedded in electoral software, saying that such
manipulations would have been revealed by the audit. The
sample for the audit, he said, was drawn from the universe of
nearly 20,000 machines. It was not, however, a stratified
sample, which would have broken the universe down into sub
units -- states -- and then selected randomly among them.
Two (unspecified) states, therefore, were not covered.


10. (C) Ries asserted that there was no computer hacking
because the system because the voting machines were not
inter-connected and only connected to the CANTV dedicated
telephone network for a short period to transmit data. He
dismissed opposition exit polls that showed a strong
opposition lead as unscientific because interviewees are not
selected by social class. Ries concluded that this election
was the "most transparent" one he had seen in Venezuela.

--------------
Coordinadora Establishes Fraud Commission
--------------


11. (C) To document and back up its allegations that fraud
was committed in the August 15 referendum, the Coordinadora
Democratica has established a commission headed by
constitutional expert Tulio Alvarez. At the moment,
according to Coordinadora representative Enrique Naime, there
are two other organizations working seriously on the
allegations -- Sumate and Gente de Petroleo (Note: Gente de
Petroleo's Juan Fernandez told poloff August 24 he is working
closely with the Coordinadora commission, though he is
getting assistance from computer experts in his
organization.). Naime likened it to salvagers who have seen
a treasure ship sink and each is competing to be the first to
find the treasure.


12. (C) Although Miranda State Gov. Enrique Mendoza spoke of
the commission as a done deal in his meeting with Ambassador
August 20, some important actors such as former Supreme
Electoral Council president Carlos Delgado are not yet on
board, according to Jorge Casado who will be acting as
executive secretary for the commission. Casado and Naime
acknowledged that another problem the Coordinadora faces is
the proliferation of fraud theories and persons attracted to
the camera lights. While the Coordinadora may succeed in
clarifying the various theories and supporting the arguments,
they said, controlling the voices is much more difficult.


13. (C) Casado said the Coordinadora's goal is to produce a
convincing case file and present it when it is ready, not in
reaction to some external event, e.g., the OAS meeting August

24. He and Naime welcomed the opening that Gaviria had left
for the opposition when he said they would be willing to
receive documentation of the opposition's allegations
whenever they were ready.


14. (U) Sumate representatives Alejandro Plaz and Maria
Corina Machado told reporters August 23 that they were not
trying to prove whether fraud occurred, but were trying to
find the truth so that all doubts could be erased. They
restated their concerns about the process based on the fact
the exit polls were so radically different from the results
as announced by the CNE. Plaz said Sumate was investigating
hundreds of complaints it had received and was consulting
with several national and international academics, and would
eventually present its findings. Machado made several
suggestions for how to improve the transparency of the voting
process for future votes and to restore credibility to the
electoral process. These suggestions included:
--Replacing all five CNE directors;
--Making the vote manual and conduct a recount of all of the
votes immediately following the vote;
--Auditing all stages of the voting process (the notebooks,
the urns, the ballots, etc.); and
--Ensuring international observers are given unrestricted
access to all phases of the vote and all offices necessary to
adequately monitor the process.

--------------


Comment
--------------


15. (C) The international observers' validation of the CNE's
audit of the August 15 results practically closes the
referendum chapter for Venezuela. Although Chavez opponents
will strive to build a case to support the allegations of
fraud, internal divisions, competing theories and doubts
whether any one of the allegations significantly altered the
results will hobble their efforts. And, the opposition has
provided no evidence, and no theory to convince the Carter
Center/OAS observers.


16. (C) On their side, Chavez and his supporters have the
momentum thanks to early, and now repeated, validation of the
results by the Carter Center and the OAS. Ironically, the
GoV had tried to limit the role of the OAS and Carter Center
prior to the referendum, but now touts their endorsement of
the results as the blessing of the international community.
Gaviria, more so than Carter, left the possibility of fraud
open, in the sense that he said there was no evidence of
fraud, but that the would review anything new that the
opposition might uncover. Many in the opposition, however,
were disappointed with the observers' role in post-referendum
events, feeling as if Carter and Gaviria were more in a hurry
to leave town than to investigate fraud allegations. The
opposition sees similarities with what they view as the OAS's
validation of the flawed 2000 elections in Peru. The
Coordinadora would have to unearth convincing proof of
electronic fraud, elusive so far, to impact on the Carter
Center/OAS evaluation of the referendum.
McFarland


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2004CARACA02705 - CONFIDENTIAL