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Venezuela solidarity activist Arnold August travelled from Canada to Venezuela to observe the July 28 election. He explains below how Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) was created through a popular democratic process following the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998 and why it must be defended.

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Following the submission of an appeal to Electoral Hall of the Supreme Court of Justice regarding Venezuela’s election result, President Nicolas Maduro made the following remarks on July 31, which were : “To those who attack me here in the world, I remind them that this young man is a co-drafter of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. I was a constituent, I participated in the debate of all the articles of the Constitution, and I am aware of the scope that the Constitution has in legal opportunities, even though I did not study law at Cambridge or ” (My translation.)

What was the Constituent Assembly and what are some of the key features of the new Constitution that emerged from it with respect to elections?

A strange dictatorship

In my second book, Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion, published in 2013, I analysed Venezuela’s political system.

I wrote that the proposal by the newly elected Hugo Chávez government in 1998 for a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution triumphed in the April 1999 referendum. “The overwhelming popular approval was the key step in the evolution of the Bolivarian Revolution. It concretized the main promise that Chávez had made in the 1998 elections.

“The exercise of drafting a new constitution was not merely in the hands of the Constituent Assembly [composed by people elected at the local level, such as Maduro], but also in those of the people themselves. Consequently, because they were involved, the grass roots felt that they were part of the new Bolivarian Revolution.

“[T]he new government organized a vast campaign in neighbourhoods and workplaces. The people received assistance in procuring, reading, having read by others (illiteracy was still a problem) and making proposals for changes and modifications in the original draft. Containers with thousands of proposals were sifted through, with the result that 70 percent of the original draft was modified.”

CNE: The fifth power

One of the main features of Venezuela’s first Constitution, which was debated, drafted and then approved in a referendum in December 1999 by 72% of voters, was the creation of the five branches of power. In addition to the executive, legislative, judicial and other branches found in other countries, Venezuela innovated with a Citizens branch (which includes the role of Ombudsman) and the National Electoral Council (CNE) as its fifth branch.

Thus, by questioning the legitimacy of the CNE after the elections of July 28 of this year, the United States and its allies are also questioning the entire Bolivarian process, with its participatory and protagonist democracy that has developed since the historic election of 1998. Thus, it is no coincidence that paid and drugged rioters destroyed several statues of Chávez on July 29. It was clear that they wanted to return Venezuela to the pre-Chávez situation under the pretext of electoral “fraud”.

Is fraud possible?

But is fraud possible in the voting system? As one of the more than 700 international election observers, my experience has been that the system is designed to be fraud-free.

For example, a voter entering the booth must provide a biometric thumbprint to prevent double voting and to confirm voter registration, ensuring only qualified citizens can vote. These safeguards apply to the opposition and the pro-Maduro camp.

Next, at the booth is a modern, state-of-the-art electronic touch screen voting machine. The voter touches their choice. Does the electronic ballot disappear into the mechanical system? No, on the contrary, it prints out a paper trail of the mechanical vote so that the citizen can verify that the printed ballot matches the touch screen vote. If it does not, the touch screen option will reappear.

According to our local election official hosts, when questioned, it almost never happens that there is a discrepancy; however, if the voter believes they have made a mistake in the selection, another touch screen vote is allowed, also subject to a paper trail certification. The electronic machines are not online during voting to prevent hacking and tampering.

The voter then goes to another booth to drop the ballot into a small ballot box. At the close of the voting, each political party has the right to send a witness to observe the counting of the paper tabs and the mechanical results to verify that they match.

To ensure quick election night results and avoid speculation and chaos, only a randomly selected 54% of polling stations undergo both mechanical and paper counts. The goal is to verify that they match. If there are no glitches or errors on that day, the system is considered trustworthy. Therefore, the remainder of the vote count is based on the mechanical system only.

Once the count is done, each of the political parties must sign off if there is no discrepancy, but if there is, it can be challenged and only when it is resolved do they sign off.

The Maduro challenge

Maduro made a surprise announcement on July 31. He accepted the opposition’s demand for a full paper count of all polling stations, turning the tables on the US-led narrative. However, he added an investigation into the sabotage of the online voting system results, all of which would be in the hands of the Electoral Branch of the Supreme Court.

He said: “I summon all the registered presidential candidates, the 38 parties, and fully compare what has been this attack on electoral centres — the CNE headquarters burnt and destroyed, the cybernetic attack — and compare all the elements of proof, and certify — making expert analysis at the highest technical level — the electoral results of the July 28 elections.

“I have told the Electoral Chamber that I am willing to be summoned, interrogated … investigated by the Electoral Chamber, as presidential candidate, winner of Sunday’s elections, and as Head of State … [T]he great patriotic pole [a united front of all political parties supporting the Maduro candidacy] and the PSUV [Maduro’s Chavista party] is ready to present 100% of the electoral records that are in our hands, and I hope that the Electoral Chamber does the same with each candidate .” (My translation.)

Opposition’s response to Maduro’s challenge

One might have presumed that the opposition and mainstream media would have seized on the opportunity to substantiate their claims. However, a Google search of the principal corporate media reveals that only a handful of outlets reported on the matter and, in all cases, their stories questioned the Supreme Court’s neutrality.

This raises the question of the strength of the opposition’s claim that their candidate won, given their apparent reluctance to pursue the matter further through the Supreme Court.

Furthermore, the most illustrative response to Maduro’s challenge was the decision by the US and its allies on August 1 to reinforce their stance on the increasingly probable recognition of the opposition candidate as Venezuela’s “president-elect”.

By the end of day on August 1, the US’s official stance, as articulated by its Department of State — citing “fraud” — was unambiguous: “We congratulate Edmundo González Urrutia on his successful campaign. Now is the time for the Venezuelan parties to begin discussions on a .”

This was not surprising. More than four months before the elections, the Miami Herald’s editor and foreign affairs columnist Andres Oppenheimer wrote about Venezuela’s “fraudulent presidential ” in an opinion piece on March 13.

For those in opposition, the issue has never been about the electoral process or the accuracy of vote tallies. Their objective is to effect regime change with the intention of destroying the Bolivarian Revolution and returning Venezuela to the status of a US colony.

The fundamental issue at stake is the defence of the CNE as the sole entity with the constitutional authority to determine electoral outcomes.