Carter Center confirms Edmundo Gonzalez’s victory in presidential elections

Carter Center head Jennie Lincoln said there was “no evidence” of hacking into the CNE system / Photo: EFE

Jennie Lincoln, head of the Carter Center’s observer mission – invited by the National Electoral Council (CNE) to observe the elections – said that “there is no evidence” that Venezuela’s electoral system was the target of a cyber attack during the July 28 elections and agreed with the projections of an opposition victory.

“Companies monitor and know when there are denials of service (hackings) and there was not one that night,” Lincoln explained Wednesday in an interview with the agency. AFP from Atlanta, United States. “The transmission of voting data is by telephone line and satellite phone and not by computer. They have not lost any data.”

Lincoln recalled that the president of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso, “said that he would publish the results table by table on the website and would give a CD to the political parties” when he announced a first bulletin.

“Despite the fact that the playing field was very uneven, the Venezuelan people went to vote,” he continued, referring to the elections. “The great irregularity of the election day was the lack of transparency of the CNE and the flagrant failure to observe its rules of the game in terms of showing the true vote of the people.”

The Carter Center, Lincoln explained, has “analyzed the numbers” available along with other organizations and universities and “confirms Edmundo González Urrutia as the winner with more than 60%” of the votes.

The opposition published on a website copies of more than 80% of the minutes, which it claims prove the victory of González Urrutia – representing leader María Corina Machado – with 67% of the votes. The CNE gave him 43% against 52% for Maduro.

Chavismo dismisses the validity of these documents and claims that they are forged.

“It is pure theater,” said Lincoln, who preferred not to comment on contacts with the CNE authorities or the regime since the Carter Center estimated in a public statement that the election “did not conform to international parameters and standards of electoral integrity” and could not “be considered democratic.”

The statement was issued when the observation mission was already out of the country.

Lincoln believes it is premature to comment on the Carter Center’s willingness to participate in an audit of this level. “I am incredulous, skeptical about what an international verification team could do that the witnesses, who have produced the true minutes of the night, have not done.”

Atlanta / Web Editor