note voting system

["Margit Johansson" <margitjo@xxxxxxxxx>]

ZNet | Venezuela

Venezuela is Not Florida

by Mark Weisbrot; December 06, 2007

Last Monday, with less than 90 percent of the vote counted and the
opposition leading by just 50.7 percent to 49.3 percent, President Chavez
congratulated his opponents on their victory. They had defeated his proposed
constitutional reforms, including the abolition of term limits for the
presidency.

No one should have been surprised by Chavez's immediate concession:
Venezuela is a constitutional democracy, and its government has stuck to the
democratic rules of the game since he was first elected in 1998. Despite the
non-renewal of the broadcast license for a major TV station in May - one
that wouldn't have gotten a license in any democratic country - Venezuela
still has the most oppositional media in the hemisphere.

But the U.S. media has managed to convey the impression to most Americans
that Venezuela is some sort of dictatorship or near-dictatorship.

Some of this disinformation takes place through mere repetition and
association (e.g. "communist Cuba" appearing in thousands of news reports)
-- just as 70 percent of Americans were convinced, prior to the Iraq war,
that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the massacres of September 11. In
that case, the major media didn't even believe the message, but somehow it
got across and provided justification for the war.

In the case of Venezuela, the media is more pro-active, with lots of grossly
exaggerated editorials and op-eds, news articles that sometimes read like
editorials, and a general lack of balance in sources and subject matter.

But Venezuela is not Pakistan. In fact, it's not Florida or Ohio either. One
reason that Chavez could be confident of the vote count is that Venezuela
has a very secure voting system. This is very different from the United
States, where millions of citizens cast electronic votes with no paper
record. Venezuelan voters mark their choice on a touch-screen machine, which
then records the vote and prints out a paper receipt for the voter. The
voter then deposits the vote in a ballot box. An extremely large random
sample - about 54 percent - of the paper ballots are counted and compared
with the electronic tally.

If the two counts match, then that is a pretty solid guarantee against
electronic fraud. Any such fraud would have to rig the machines and stuff
the ballot boxes to match them - a trick that strains the imagination.

In 2007, Venezuelans once again came in second for all of Latin America in
the percentage of citizens who are satisfied or very satisfied with their
democracy, according to the prestigious Chilean polling firm Latinobarometro
- 59 percent, far above the Latin American average of 37 percent.

It is not only the secure elections that are responsible for this result -
it is also that the government has delivered on its promises to share the
nation's oil wealth with the poor and the majority. For most people - unlike
the pundits here - voting for something and actually getting what you voted
for are also an important part of democracy.

The Bush Administration has consistently sought regime change in Venezuela,
even before Chavez began regularly denouncing "the Empire." According to the
U.S. State Department, Washington funded leaders and organizations involved
in the coup which briefly overthrew Chavez's democratically elected
government in April 2002. The Washington Post reported this week that the
Bush Administration has been funding unnamed student groups, presumably
opposition, up to and including this year.

Venezuela must be seen as undemocratic, and Chavez as the aggressor against
the United States, in order to justify the Bush Administration's objective
of regime change. As in the run-up to the Iraq war, most of the major media
are advancing the Administration's goals, regardless of the intentions of
individual journalists.








<https://mail.zmag.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=""
ion.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2%26c=eVZWnljUm0eX9fx5X%252FpG8OT9PrWgLcdQ
> Mark
Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in
Washington, D.C. (www.cepr.net
).









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Message: 3
Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 00:39:47 -0500
From: Howard Stanislevic <
hscomms@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Auditing] Secure elections (and audits) in Venezuela
To: Arlene Ash <
aash@xxxxxx>
Cc: auditing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Message-ID: <
475A2E22.4020000@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Yeah, I hear they use a tiered audit: 3, 5 and 54%!  :)
Howard

Arlene Ash wrote:
>
>  If you believed the hype that has flooded the US media over the last
> few weeks to the effect of what a fascist dictator Hugo Chavez is, you
> would be surprised to learn how enviable their electoral system is.
> -Arlene
>
>
>     *ZNet | Venezuela*
>     *Venezuela is Not Florida*
>     *by Mark Weisbrot; December 06, 2007*
>
>         Last Monday, with less than 90 percent of the vote counted and
>         the opposition leading by just 50.7
 percent to 49.3 percent,
>         President Chavez congratulated his opponents on their victory.
>         They had defeated his proposed constitutional reforms,
>         including the abolition of term limits for the presidency.
>
>         No one should have been surprised by Chavez's immediate
>         concession: Venezuela is a constitutional democracy, and its
>         government has stuck to the democratic rules of the game since
>         he was first elected in 1998. Despite the non-renewal of the
>         broadcast license for a major TV station in May - one that
>         wouldn't have gotten a license in any democratic country -
>         Venezuela still has the most oppositional media in the hemisphere.
>
>         But the U.S. media has managed to convey the impression to
>         most Americans that Venezuela is some sort of dictatorship or
>         near-dictatorship.
>
>         Some of this disinformation takes place through mere
>         repetition and association (e.g. "communist Cuba" appearing in
>         thousands of news reports) -- just as 70 percent of Americans
>         were convinced, prior to the Iraq war, that Saddam Hussein was
>         responsible for the massacres of September 11. In that case,
>         the major media didn't even believe the message, but somehow
>         it got across and provided justification for the war.
>
>         In the case of Venezuela, the media is more pro-active, with
>         lots of grossly exaggerated editorials and op-eds, news
>         articles that sometimes read like editorials, and a general
>         lack of balance in sources and subject matter.
>
>         But Venezuela is not Pakistan. In fact, it's not Florida or
>         Ohio either. One reason that Chavez could be confident of the
>         vote count is that Venezuela has a very secure voting system.
>         This is very different from the United States, where millions
>         of citizens cast electronic votes with no paper record.
>         Venezuelan voters mark their choice on a touch-screen machine,
>         which then records the vote and prints out a paper receipt for
>         the voter. The voter then deposits the vote in a ballot box.
>         An extremely large random sample - about 54 percent - of the
>         paper ballots are counted and compared with the electronic tally.
>
>         If the two counts match, then that is a pretty solid guarantee
>         against electronic fraud. Any such fraud would have to rig the
>         machines and stuff the ballot boxes to match them - a trick
>         that strains the imagination.
>
>         In 2007, Venezuelans once again came in second for all of
>         Latin America in the percentage of citizens who are satisfied
>         or very satisfied with their democracy, according to the
>         prestigious Chilean polling firm Latinobarometro - 59 percent,
>         far above the Latin American average of 37 percent.
>
>         It is not only the secure elections that are responsible for
>         this result - it is also that the government has delivered on
>         its promises to share the nation's oil wealth with the poor
>         and the majority. For most people - unlike the pundits here -
>         voting for something and actually getting what you voted for
>         are also an important part of democracy.
>
>         The Bush Administration has consistently sought regime change
>         in Venezuela, even before Chavez began regularly denouncing
>         "the Empire." According to the U.S. State Department,
>         Washington funded leaders and organizations involved in the
>         coup which briefly overthrew Chavez's democratically elected
>         government in April 2002. The Washington Post reported this
>         week that the Bush Administration has been funding unnamed
>         student groups, presumably opposition, up to and including
>         this year.
>
>         Venezuela must be seen as undemocratic, and Chavez as the
>         aggressor against the United States, in order to justify the
>         Bush Administration's objective of regime change. As in the
>         run-up to the Iraq war, most of the major media are advancing
>         the Administration's goals, regardless of the intentions of
>         individual journalists.
>
>
>
>
>
>         _Mark Weisbrot_
>         <
https://mail.zmag.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL="">>
>         is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research,
>         in Washington, D.C. (www.cepr.net).
>