You can't fool all the people all the time.
There's people who cannot be fooled by the tricks of oil-rich authocrats like Hugo Chávez. The authors of these two cartoons hail from two very different places. The first was penned by a canadian, the second one by a chilean. They perceived what a substantial percentage of the Venezuelan population has perceived: There is government foul play in this referendum, driven by an addiction to power unhealthy in any tried and true democrat.
Certain forces inside the Chávez camp might have pulled a fast one on the OAS, the Carter Center, the international observers (not all of them though) and the international community, but what's really damaging to him and his
entourage is he with the help of his cronies Carrasquero, Battaglini and Rodríguez set up the Venezuelan people to be duped by a less than stellar electoral process which has a lot of loose ends right now.
So here's a word to the wise: this government has done the unthinkable, it has broken the faith of people in the institution of suffrage. People will have a hard time embracing peaceful democratic solutions because they have been deceived and disappointed by the actions of a
cabal of fundamentalists and opportunists who see the State as means to an end: power and money.
Hugo Chávez might heve gotten away with it this time, but some venezuelans have learnt the hard way you can't always entrust men like Chávez with power.
P.S.:
To Quico: stop questioning yourself. You're right and you know it.
To the InChBrig: One day we will remember this and laugh about it. You on the other hand will keep telling yourself that Hugo was a patron saint of democracy and the poor when you know it's bullshit.
To JdS: Nice way of being ni-ni:
Palo por ese culo? Felicitaciones, te botaste.
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"When you have eliminated the impossible...
...whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
-Sherlock Holmes
1-Impossible: The Carter Center and the OAS conspiring with CNE and the Chavez government to wilfully disregard fraud.
2-Impossible: The Carter Center and the OAS are so clueless they are willing to participate in a cold-audit carried out on a biased sample of ballot boxes, or on ballot boxes that have been tampered with.
3-Impossible: A cold-audit of 150 voting boxes, picked at random and checked in front of CC/OAS, fails to turn up evidence of the theft of millions of votes.
4-Improbable: Wilfully or not, Sumate/PennSchoen&Berland screwed up their exit polls.
5-Improbable: CNE refused the hot-audit because they actually believed that holding up a results announcement for an additional 5 or 6 hours risked destabilizing the country.
Believe me, folks, it brings me no joy to post this...
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Y entonces?
From today's
Financial Times piece on the cold-audit.
As the audit was under way on Thursday night observers appear to have found only 713 examples from more than 12,000 polling centres that showed results with identical numbers of votes including 311 that showed an equal number of No votes.
"The most important thing is that it affects both sides. It would appear to indicate a random effect," said Jennifer McCoy, a Carter Center official. "This audit will determine if there is a significant incidence of this cap effect."
It's an odd-numbered day, guys: today I'm leaning against the fraud hypothesis.
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Email to stop me in my tracks
Just got this in my email, more grist for the mill...
A word of caution: I come from the former Yugoslavia, specifically Serbia. Over there, we overthrew our elected dictator in 2000. The overthrow was trigerred by the opposition claims of electoral fraud, that in turn brought hundreds of thousands (some say millions) protesters to the street, prompted the police and army to switch sides and Milosevic fell. The specific fraud claim was that the opposition candidate won more than 50% of votes in the first round of presidential elections and that the authorities somehow falsified that result. However, two years later, several opposition leaders confessed in interviews included into a documentary film (not sure about the name) that they had lied. The opposition candidate had less than 50% of votes in the first round but the opposition was afraid that Milosevic would get together his act by the second round and did not want to risk yet another failure. So they consciously lied, the people believed them, and the rest is history.
Which makes me wonder whetehr something similar is happening in Venezuela. If I were with CD and I was aware of an impending loss, I would do exactly what they are doing now. Given the divisions in the Venezuelan society, they do not need to provide any verifiable or convincing evidence of fraud. "Indications" of fraud are enough for most of CD supporters, right? Thus, the opposition supporters will continue believing that they are a majority and be even more fired up because of the "fraud". To admit that Chavez' victory was fair essentially means admitting that "they" have the majority, and in a society as divided as in Venezuela, would anything be more discouraging than that?
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LET´S HAVE FUN...
Guys:
I studied literature, not statistics, so the scientific rant is BORING (at least for me!). My main trouble, for all you guys is:
LAST SUNDAY, ALL VENEZUELANS GOT TO VOTE. THE LINES WERE AMAZING (Justin Delacour, as a witness, admitted that, and, as he didn´t know each and every vote, he surely, for the sake of fairness, would stand by his words!), NO MATTER WHERE YOU WENT, NO MATTER WHO YOU WERE, NO MATTER IF YOU CHOSE 'YES' OR 'NO', THERE WAS A MASS STANDING NO FIRST WORLD COUNTRY HAS SEEN IN AT LEAST 50 YEARS!
NOW, GUYS: MY PERSONAL, INDIVIDUAL, PROBLEM, IS:
Can exit polls be so wrong? Fujimori was considered by dear little Carter and the OAS as a"cheater" after those exit polls. Hummm!!! Daniel Ortega accepted his defeat under exit poll evidences, HUMM! Noriega ALMOST admitted his defeat on those "exit polls"! HUMM.
But then, with an unproofed e-system, guys like Dan Burnett told me (us): "You lost! Admit it and move over!" Some Americans doubt the "legitimacy" of Bush´s presidency for just one reason. HUMMM! The e-voting!
So, All of you (and Dan, this is for you) , and also on the name of "foreign" correspondants that took this as a trip to tropical beaches, why should I accept your perceptions as final opinions after less than a week? How long did you take to accept "fair results" in Bush´s case? If I remember well, it was at least a month...
This election was supposed to bring some "stability" to the region (that was CARTER´S ROLE!).
But, even among "light" Chavistas, that wasn´t the evident result. Yesterday, I took a cab. The driver (I told him I had voted yes), never told me how he had voted. He was dubious... as the rest of Venezuelans.
I repeat, again, what I´ve said all along: Maybe the YES lost. If the numbers had been undoubtedly counted in some number of polling stations, I would have accepted the results. After two bottles of good rum, I would have stood up, and followed Mr. Burnett advise and move on. But not even Chavecos are doing it... The cab driver was depressed and worried...
So, as a question to reasonable independents: should I accept your "we are the First World, we are the children" song and dance along? No, guys. I´m a human being, not a number in your fair statisticts that say: in Venezuela, 80 % is poor, so Chávez should at least have 80 % support!
Even if official numbers are right, he just got 60 %. SO SOMETHING IS WRONG. MAYBE WE ARE ALL WRONG!
Look here: over every neck, there is a head. If not, we´ll all look like chickens on the fridge! Something was wrong in the e-vote in Venezuela. If those "soi disant" liberals don´t address my reasonable doubts, the same they had over Bush´ election, I´ll assert that the only valid democracy was the classical one... the one with slaves Pericles developed! And, of course, I´ll be among the Third World slaves... As always.
Best regards, take care, keep safe, stay cool! And, oh, yeah: use e-voting machines. That´s the safest way, guys. Venezuela just prooved it!
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For all oppo sympathizers of the blog
Rhyme and reason have left the building and, as Quico is not here to control the disorder, I beg you not to post nor debase yourselves with people that can act in such and ungentlemanly fashion when they are
sure they won
clearly and
cleanly. Pa decírselos en español, se les ve la catadura de esbirros, cómo se comportarían en el improbable caso de ganar en sus propios lugares de origen. So, guys, control your anger and let them ramble by themselves. Without interlocutors, they will soon calm down. I beg you: ignore them, or we will lose a place to meet we all appreciate and cherish, while they don´t.
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Realities
1-It would take a miracle of public relations management for the opposition to win the international public opinion battle around the referendum. As far as 99% of foreigners are concerned, what Carter says, goes. The opposition has never demonstrated any particular gift for public relations abroad - quite the opposite - so one thing is clear: Five years of efforts by the opposition to explain to the world just how brutally nasty, deceitful and dangerous Hugo Chavez is were comprehensively undone on Monday. This is a battle we will not win.
2-Working on the assumption that there was a Si-cap fraud (i.e. the machines were programmed to cap the number of Si votes they would register) - the fraud will only be understandable by people with a solid background in university level statistics. Chavez is a genius at this sort of thing - most of the outrages he commits are so complicated, they're impossible to explain succinctly and clearly. Just as there's no 30-second soundbyte explanation possible for the Montesinos Affair, the looting of FIEM, the April 11th massacre, the purge of PDVSA, the burning of the Fuerte Mara soldiers, or any of 5 dozen other outrages, there'll never be an understandable 30-second retelling of the Si-cap fraud. However, statistically speaking, it may well be possible to demonstrate a fraud
even without looking at a single ballot paper. A statistician can easily work out the probability that the statistical "fluke" that's turning up in the data is merely a coincidence. If, as seems likely, that probability is vanishingly small, I'll have to think there was fraud, whatever the audits say.
3-CNE claimed that the reason for refusing an Auditoria en Caliente is that it would have taken too long - the automated tallying system would have had to be stopped while paper ballots were counted, generating mistrust and confusion. If the purpose of refusing the Auditoria en Caliente was to bolster the credibility of the eventual results, the least one can say is that it was not a very effective strategy. Throughout, CNE acted as though holding an auditoria en caliente would be a punishingly slow task, or one of herculean complexity. This is not so, as the good burghers of Valle de la Pascua demonstrate. According to
this International Herald Tribune piece, "In the town of Valle de la Pascua, where papers were counted at the initiative of those manning the voting center, the Yes vote had been cut by more than 75 percent, and the entire voting material was seized by the national guard shortly after the difference was established."
4-Holding an Auditoria en Frio on a sample of Voting Centers selected unilaterally by CNE 12 hours earlier is about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle. It stands to reason that if 40% (or is it 60%?) of the country is convinced you're crooked enough to cheat them out of their votes, they're not going to trust you to choose the sample and procedures meant to demonstrate that you didn't.
5-As
Daniel explains in his blog, a random selection of voting tables may not be a particularly sensible response to the specific fraud allegations being made. The Coordinadora Democratica is alleging quite specific irregularities in a specified set of voting centers. CNE - which was so adamant in checking every single signature con lupa - refuses to open up the ballot boxes in the specific places where the CD alleges fraud. Why? El que no la debe no la teme. Once again, CNE acts in a way that is at least consistent with a cover-up - and certain to be interpreted as such by doubters.
6-If Chavez won cleanly, CNE's refusal to conduct a hot-audit has robbed him of the possibility of convincing the entire country that he won cleanly. The country is back to square one in terms of collective schizophrenia. 60% of us live one reality, 40% live another reality. Perversely, each side is convinced that
it is the 60% and the other side is the 40%. Each side is convinced the other is engaged in a mind-blowingly complex, dark, evil conspiracy to usurp power. The governability crisis continues. The epistemic gulf drags on. The only thing that's changed is that Chavez will now enjoy much greater international credibility. Fronteras adentro, nothing has changed.
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Credibility, Responsibility and Conspiracy
Folks,
If the after-the-fact audit shows that the CNE results were genuine, this would demonstrate that there was a massive conspiracy to mislead the nation - possibly pushing it towards a civil war - on the part of those who conducted the exit polls. It is plainly impossible for a well-run exit poll of 20,000+ respondents to get results wrong by 20%. If there really was a conspiracy on that scale, all those who conducted exit polls or believed in them will see our credibility hit an unimaginable abyss. If this is the case, Venezuela's rank-and-file opposition members must demand a thorough overhaul of the opposition's leadership. And this blog will have to run a long, thorough apology and go offline.
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Fight Gallinerization Today!
The last post has been erased to clean up the comments section, which had descended into an unacceptable string of ad hominem attacks. Since there are many new people posting over the last few days, I'll restate some basic rules:
1-Don't insult your opponents. Ever. It's just not allowed. I'll ban you if you do it again - you know who you are.
2-Make comments meant to take the debate forward, not to bait your opponents into a screaming match.
3-Remember that you don't own the truth, and people who disagree with you are entitled to disagree with you. This is true even when you feel really, really deeply about what you're writing
Finally, a tip rather than a rule: try not to be boring.
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No on-the-spot audit, no closure
From the comments...I only have time for one post tonight. So I have this to say.
If the second audit reveals that the vote tally was fraudelent the CNE, Chavez, JVR and a whole host of others should be in jail and a new RR held right away.
But I would like to hear from folks on this. If the audit matches the announced results is this the end? Will people accept the results? What I am hearing here makes me think that no matter what happens many here are going to allege fraud. So I think that people here should put their cards on the table and say where this ends for them and what results they will accept.
The CNE didn't have to agree to this audit but they did. I'm glad. Someone here is lying big time and will have zero credibility after this is over. We'll know who that someone is shortly. So please, lets all say where we stand on this.
Dan Burnett | 08.17.04 - 10:56 pm | #
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Dan,
You raise the key question, and I'm afraid you are right: even if the auditoria en frio (after-the-fact audit) says CNE had it right, many in the opposition will not accept it. Why? Because the "cuerpo del delito" - the ballot papers - have been in the hands of stooges of the main suspect - the Chavez-controlled military - since Sunday night.
The fact is that the *only* procedure that could've settled this question definitively and beyond any shadow of a doubt was an on-the-spot audit - the so-called
auditoria en caliente. If CNE had agreed to open the ballot boxes
on Sunday night, five minutes after the last vote was cast, publicly, in a statistically valid random sample of voting centers, in front of poll workers, witnesses from both sides and international observers, counted the physicial ballots and matched them to the electronic tally, then,
then - there would be no room for doubt at all. This, after all, is what the Smartmatic machines were designed for, the whole reason they produce a paper vote.
Think how different Venezuela would be right now if we'd had an on-the spot audit. The country would be moving on by now...the winners would be celebrating, the losers soul-searching, the country entering into a new phase. The country would've found a peaceful, democratic, electoral and constitutional solution to the crisis - which was the whole point of the exercise in the first place.
Now, why was there no on-the-spot audit? The history here is very clear, very straightforward, amply documented. Felipe Mujica and Alberto Quiros Corradi, the opposition's negotiators at CNE, pushed hard for this kind of check in pre-vote negotiations with CNE. Jorge Rodriguez, acting as CNE's main negotiator, simply refused, categorically, to even consider any variation on this kind of check.
To my mind, it was JR's refusal to allow an auditoria en caliente that robbed the country of the possibility of a definitive, authoritative solution to the crisis. Even if there was no fraud, JR killed the only check that could've convinced both sides of our terribly polarized, low-trust country that this was so.
In other words, no on-the-spot audit, no closure.
I've spent the last two days obsessively considering this question, and I just cannot think of any plausible explanation for JR's refusal to allow on-the-spot audits that doesn't involve some kind of hanky panky. I wish I could, but I can't. Maybe you can help me here.
On-the-spot auditing, according to the burned-by-Diebold US left, is the key requirement to make eVoting trustworthy. On-the-spot auditing is what the Smartmatic machines were built to allow. Why the hell did they buy the machines and then refuse to perform the key checks the machines were designed to allow? It doesn't add up.
Quico | 08.18.04 - 7:03 am | #
Addendum: I am not a Johnny-come-lately on the on-the-spot audit front. I wrote about it three times in June, just before and just after the CD/CNE negotiations were concluded:
On June 7, 2004 I wrote: "Thre must be a paper trail, and on the spot verification of the automated totals. The experience with Diebold in the US makes this painfully clear."
On June 9th, right after CNE finally set a referendum date and ruled out an on the spot audit, I evaluated the announcement: "The bad: The date is August 15th, not August 8th. There will be no on-the-spot verification of automated results."
On June 11th, in the comments section: "The auditoria en caliente is the key to everything. The system was *designed* with on-the-spot auditing in mind. There is no possible justification for not having it..."
The importance of on-the-spot auditing was clear all the way back then - but I thought, like Quiros and Mujica, that getting to a vote before Aug. 19th was so much more important than any other consideration, that even a key check like this one could be tossed into the pyre for the sake of expediency.
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GUYS, calm down...
As is obvious to all the "parroquianos", I'm against Chávez. That means that, ballot counting, we can still lose. But not by the margin Carrasqueso says (THAT WASN'T A MISSPELLING!). All we want is a fair counting, that's all. Not the typical "acta mata voto" (translation: "red tape gets over people", or something near that), but a real recounting of ballots, a statistically valid sampling. I can lose, guys... Here, in this particularly weird blog, all Chávez's opposers knew we could lose. But what I won´t take (what WE won't take) , never, is to be treated like scum. I want demonstrations, not beautiful words. My perceptions (the mood in Caracas is just the one we had after the Vargas' tragedy) are of no avail, neither is the fact that there are no celebrations, just agressions. WE WANT THE TRUTH! WE WANT THE FACTS. And if oil prices go up... well, those of you who live in the first world should instruct your mothers in the old, lost, mysterious art of walking!
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The fat lady hasn´t sung yet...
"CABALLERO NO SE ACUESTE USTÉ A DORMÍ
SIN COMESE UN CUCURUCHO DE MANÍ"
(Just to start a new thread, so no one gets fired. Be calm, reasonable, as our doubts!)
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"Exit Poll Results Show Major Defeat for Chavez"
This is the Penn, Schoen and Berland exit poll press release.New York, August 15, 2004, 7:30pm EST - With Venezuela's voting set to end at 8:00pm EST according to election officials, final exit poll results from Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, an independent New York-based polling firm, show a major victory for the "Yes" movement, defeating Chavez in the Venezuelan presidential recall referendum.
With more than 8 million Venezuelans having cast their ballots so far, the results of a national exit poll show that Chavez has been ousted by referendum.
The Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates exit poll shows 59% in favor of recalling Chavez (the "Si" or "Yes", anti-Chavez vote) and 41% against recalling Chavez (the "No", pro-Chavez vote).
The poll results referred to in this release are based on an exit poll just concluded in Venezuela.
This is a national exit poll conducted in 267 voting centers throughout the country. The centers were selected to be broadly representative of the national electorate in regional and demographic terms.
In these centers, 20,382 voters were interviewed. Voters were selected at random but according to a strict demographic breakdown by age and gender to ensure a representative mix reflective of the national electorate. Those voters who were randomly selected to participate in this exit poll were asked to indicate only their vote ("Si" - for "Yes" - or "No") on a small ballot which they could then personally drop into a large envelope in order to maintain secrecy and anonymity. Data was sent by exit poll workers to a central facility in Caracas, Venezuela for processing and verification.
The margin of error for these final exit poll results referred to in this release is under +/-1%.
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One detail, and my last contribution...
Carter said the Carter Center had been present at the tallying. Gaviria said they hadn´t...
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The Perfect Fraud
Or, an avalanche of whysThe last three days have been a terrible emotional rollercoaster, and the time may not be right for cool-headed analysis. One of two things happened on Sunday - either the government won massively or it cheated massively. Last night, I was almost sure the government won massively - today, I'm leaning the other way. Why?
Ever since CNE decided on the Smartmatic machines, there's been a number of troubling question hanging over the election: why, if you're paying millions of dollars for thousands of machines whose main benefit is that they produce a paper trail for each vote, did CNE refuse, from the start, to allow an auditoria-en-caliente (on the spot audit) to compare the paper votes at each of the voting centers with the actas (tallies) transmitted back to CNE headquarters? In the days after the reparos process, opposition negotiators Felipe Mujica and Alberto Quiroz Corradi pushed hard for this guarantee to be built into the process, but met a brick wall in Jorge Rodriguez. He wouldn't even agree to an auditoria en caliente of a small sample of voting centers - why?
One obvious hypothesis is that JR understood that an auditoria en caliente was the one control that would lay bare the kind of fraud they were planning - where the machines register votes that are different from those cast.
More deep dark whys: Why did CNE work so hard to limit the scope of activity of the International Observers? Why did they allow Carter and Gaviria to do a quick count of the
transmitted (i.e. already tampered with) results only? Why did they insist on inviting Hebe de Bonafini and other open government supporters, but "forget" to send out invitations to the European Union mission?
Why were they so scared of exit polls?
Why did they threaten to shut down TV stations if they aired exit poll results?
Why were some Aporrea posters sure they'd lost on Sunday night? Why did Romero Anselmi go on VTV on Sunday night, looking like a funeral director, to say that, "whatever happens, the democratic game goes on" and that "it's ok, because we have a lifesaver called the Constitution, and that will go on"? Why did Comando Maisanta disappear all Sunday and turn up on TV looking dishevelled and straining to put on a smile? Why was Chavez praising JVR's loyalty on Sunday morning? Why?
Why did a half-dozen independently conducted exit polls all come up with the same results, which were a mirror image of the results eventually announced? Was this a massive opposition conspiracy? Who gave the CD leaders such stunningly effective acting lessons? Why were they so exultant all night on Sunday? If they were acting, why aren't they given an emergency Oscar?
Why was the CNE's Comite de Totalizacion (tallying committee) never assembled, as it should've been according to CNE's own regulations? Who carried out the totalizacion? Why was Ezequiel Zamora barred from the tallying room? Why were opposition witnesses barred from the tallying room?
Where are the paper votes right now? What guarantee do we have that they're not being tampered with ahead of an auditoria en frio?
There are too many loose ends here. I'm getting leaks from an OAS staffer who says he believes there was fraud, but the restrictive observation rules imposed by CNE made it impossible for the observers to detect it.
Remember, so far, not one paper ballot has been matched to a single electronic tally - CNE did not allow OAS/Carter Center to perform such checks. In the end, these idiots agreed to carry out an observation mission under rules that barred them from poking into the site of the fraud.
Extremely serious stuff. If the fraud allegations are true, Venezuela today is a dictatorship, a country run by the minority. You have to admire the gumption, the audacity of CNE's directors in pulling off a stunt of this magnitude. Worst of all, with no auditoria-en-caliente, it may well be that the paper ballot have already been disposed of or tampered with. We may never know what really happened...because, again, CNE insisted on a series of observation rules that leave room for this avalanche of whys.
Of course, this could be all wrong - perhaps there was no fraud, perhaps the Perfect Fraud came on the other side, in the form of a carefully orchestrated opposition conspiracy to cast doubt on perfectly valid results. The one instrument that could have cleared this up definitively - an auditoria en caliente directly after the close of voting performed on a random sample of voting centers - was denied categorically by CNE.
Why?
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None of it makes any sense...
But it looks very much to me like the government won fair and square. If it didn't, it'll come out in the paper-trail audit, which CNE's Jorge Rodriguez has already agreed to.
If the government did win fair and square, the Coordinadora Democratica has a LOT of explaining to do. In fact, if the government did win fair and square the Coordinadora Democratica leadership has a lot of
resigning to do.
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Worst Case Scenario
It's the very worst thing that could've happened. CNE head Francisco Carrasquero, by himself, announces a set of partial results that give the government a huge advantage. The opposition CNE members immediately say the announcement was made without following proper procedures. The opposition cries foul, and announces mirror-image results. The Carter Center/OAS mission is missing in action, at least at first.
A national disaster, in short. The referendum was meant to bring
closure to the governance crisis in Venezuela. With results that fly in the face of exit-poll results announced on the basis of a fishy procedure, the referendum takes Venezuela further away from closure, not closer.
These are dangerous days for Venezuela, dangerous hours. The potential for violence is high. The opposition cannot, will not accept these results. And chavismo, surely enough, will not accept their reversal.
In other words, God only knows how the referendum will go down in history, but it will not go down as the peaceful, constitutional, electoral and democratic solution to the crisis that was the one chance the country had of avoiding both dictatorship and civil war.
There could, I suppose, still be a 13th hour surprise. But Jimmy Carter and Cesar Gaviria are diplomats, not miracle workers.
Pray for Venezuela, folks...it's going to get ugly.
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12:45 a.m.: The Carter Shuttle Swings Into Action
Past midnight, and the mood in the opposition is exhultant. The real question now is how the government will deal with the staggering defeat they're being dealt. Will they grin and bear it, or are there more tricks to come?
UnionRadio reports that President Carter has just left Opposition headquarters at the Tamanaco Hotel headed towards the National Electoral Council. This is crunch time, la hora de la chucurrucuticas. The next few hours are critical.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, when all is said and done, we'll have to choose a major Caracas street to rename Avenida Presidente Carter...
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Carter: Everyone Will Get To Vote
President Carter announces that CNE says it is willing to keep voting centers open for as long as it takes so everyone gets to vote. Lines remain very long throughout Venezuela, turnout appears to be extraordinarily high.
Presidents Carter and Gaviria once again urged everyone not to announce results before CNE makes an official statement...but, lets get real: this is Venezuela, information leaks, exit polls leak, sewer systems leak, everything leaks...and, dear readers, Hugo Chavez is in big big trouble...
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Eyewitness Report #1
I woke up before 5:00 am and got to my voting center by 5:10. Everything went smoothly and even that way, I got to vote by 8:30 am. Guess what was causing the delays?
You got it...the fingerprint machines. The funny thing is that the voting centers that have fingerprint machines (very few,) already gave up on transmiting the data to make comparisons. They only get your fingerprint and that's it. This is the situation nation-wide.
Before getting home I took a little ride around the city and huge lines are the common scene.
Many voting centers haven't been opened yet but people seem to be waiting patiently.
That's it for now.
Cristina in Caracas
Have a short, sharp snippet of observation to add to this blog? Send it to caracaschronicles@fastmail.fm
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Chavez Reelection Blog: Katy documents the government's use of public resources for Chavez's partisan advantage.
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