CAPEL AUDIT SUGGEST VOTER ROLLS UNTRUSTWORTHY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CARACAS 003113

SIPDIS

HQSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD
DEPT PASS TO AID/OTI RPORTER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/18/2020
TAGS: PGOV KDEM VE
SUBJECT: CAPEL AUDIT SUGGEST VOTER ROLLS UNTRUSTWORTHY

REF: A. CARACAS 02201


B. CARACAS 02441

Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROBERT R. DOWNES FOR 1.4 (D)

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Summary
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1. (C) In a meeting with poloff October 11, Ricardo
Valverde, the Program Director for the umbrella organization
for the Center for Electoral Assistance and Promotion
(CAPEL),said CAPEL's audit would likely conclude that the
electoral registry is too unreliable to hold meaningful
elections. The Venezuelan National Identification Office's
poor record keeping and National Electoral Council (CNE)
foot-dragging have delayed the audit, however, making a
report unlikely to be delivered before December. Controversy
still surrounds CAPEL's work, as questions have surfaced
about the organization's methodology. Despite these doubts,
it is encouraging that CAPEL appears willing to denounce CNE
irregularities, but CAPEL representatives have made strong
statements about holding the CNE accountable before, only to
walk away from them when tested. End summary.

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Background
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2. (C) The Center for Electoral Assistance and Promotion
(CAPEL) is a Costa Rica-based organization that provides
technical assistance to electoral bodies in the hemisphere.
In late June 2005, CAPEL signed what was described as a
"multimillion dollar contract" with the National Electoral
Council (CNE) (ref a) to conduct an audit of the electoral
register. CAPEL has refused to discuss the terms of the
audit with anyone not participating, citing its contractual
obligations to the CNE. It appears, however, that CAPEL is
relying heavily on CNE access, expertise, and officials to
conduct what had been billed as an independent study. As a
result, the opposition, which had been invited to observe the
audit under restricted conditions, has withheld its
participation until CAPEL explains its methodology.
Meanwhile, domestic observation group Ojo Electoral is
observing the audit and had considered performing a special
study to complement CAPEL's work.

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CAPEL Finds Registry in Bad Shape
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3. (C) On October 11, poloff met with Ricardo Valverde, the
Program Director of the Interamerican Institute of Human
Rights (IIDH),the umbrella organization for CAPEL. Valverde
said the study would likely conclude the electoral registry
was fundamentally flawed, but that the errors spanned decades
and did not occur during President Chavez's presidency alone.
He noted, for example, that the National Identification
Office's (Onidex) birth records were so incomplete that the
existence of 80 percent of the voters in CAPEL's sample could
not be verified. When CAPEL warned the CNE of this problem
the CNE directors at first tried to blame CAPEL's
methodology, then tried to persuade auditors to examine only
the voters whose records could be found. CAPEL agreed to the
CNE's suggestion and found that, in some cases, the birth
records consisted only of the person's name on a piece of
paper with an Onidex official's stamp. The auditors also
continued to examine the list of voters with missing birth
records to determine any patterns and have found that most
problems lay in rural areas.
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But Will Anyone Else Find Out?
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4. (C) Contrary to what IIDH Executive Director Roberto
Cuellar told PolCouns September 26, Valverde said Onidex's
inadequate records and CNE foot dragging in handing over
material would delay CAPEL's report for several weeks. In
fact, auditors did not receive all the material they needed
until October 9 and technicians will probably not finish
processing the information until October 15. He speculated
that a preliminary report, if rushed, could be completed some
time in November, but he did not favor hurrying the project.


5. (C) During last week's meeting between Cuellar and CNE
leaders to iron out the auditors' problems in getting access
to material, Valverde said Cuellar warned the CNE about
mishandling the report. (Note: Cuellar told PolCouns
September 26 that CAPEL was concerned that the CNE would
publish only the favorable sections of the report.) Cuellar
said the CNE had three options: publish the report in its
entirety, not distribute it at all, or publish parts of it.
Cuellar encouraged the CNE to publish the report, which would
be the best solution, and noted that not publishing it would
be unwise but within the organization's discretion.
However, Cuellar warned that CAPEL would consider the third
option a breach of good faith and would distribute the report
itself. After that warning, Valverde said the CNE agreed to
publish the full final report.

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Doubts About Audit Grow
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6. (C) Emboffs have met with representatives from several
organizations in the past few weeks that have expressed
concerns about CAPEL's audit. On October 14, Sumate Director
Maria Corina Machado told the Ambassador and PolCouns that
CAPEL appeared to be relying on CNE selected staff to carry
out field work, raising questions about the audit's autonomy.
In addition, Sumate reviewed CAPEL's original proposal and
has found several potential methodological problems,
including the possible exclusion of new voters from the audit
and uncorrected biases in its random sampling method. NDI
Program Officer Carlos Claramount, a liaison to the only
third-party audit observer Ojo Electoral, told emboffs a
visiting NDI technical advisor told Ojo that he had found
similar errors in CAPEL's methodology, which he said would
make it impossible to define the study's margin of error.


7. (C) On September 30 Robert Ansuini, a former CNE official
who worked on the electoral registry, told poloff that he
found several defects that could potentially allow the CNE to
pad the voter rolls undetected. According to Ansuini, the
CNE used to issue each state new voter identification
("cedula") numbers based on their projections of new
registrants for the year. The cedula numbers that were not
used were dropped from the system and the new numbers would
start where the last series ended. Ansuini alleges that
older citizens who have registered to vote in the past two
years are receiving the previously discarded cedula numbers
from their birth year instead of a number from the year they
actually registered. Ansuini said he had raised this issue
with the CAPEL team, but they did not seem interested.


8. (C) Opposition political parties continue to criticize
CAPEL's unwillingness to explain its methodology and on
September 13 sent a letter to CAPEL requesting a suspension
of the audit until the opposition is included. As in
poloff's previous meeting (ref b),Valverde defended CAPEL's
decision to deal only with the CNE as complying with a
contract with a member organization and denied that such a
relationship meant CAPEL was biased toward the Venezuelan
electoral board. Valverde was highly critical of the
opposition and qualified their choice not to observe the
audit as a grave strategic error and a huge waste of an
opportunity. Valverde acknowledged the opposition's
observers would have been participating under severe
restrictions, but thought the rules still allowed for
sufficient insight into the quality of the government's
records. Valverde said the opposition's complaints about not
knowing the audit's parameters were untrue as CAPEL had
called a meeting September 8 to explain its plans, but the
opposition's sole representative walked out before the
meeting began because CNE officials were not present.
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Comment
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9. (C) Despite suspected flaws and biases in CAPEL's
methodology, its auditors are finding significant problems
with the electoral registry that suggest meaningful elections
using the current voter rolls are doubtful. However, CAPEL
and IIDH representatives have made strong statements about
holding the CNE accountable before, only to walk away from
them when tested. Therefore, the final report may not
contain as strong a rejection of the registry's unreliability
as Valverde implies it will. Valverde's and the opposition's
criticism of each other have some merit. Both sides have
forfeited a golden opportunity to ensure a more balanced
election by outing CNE misconduct and ineptitude, but lack of
communication and CNE manipulation will keep the audit
shrouded in unnecessary mystery and likely undermine any
potential utility of the report.

Brownfield