Maduro reportedly lost the election in Venezuela
Many states do not recognize the re-election of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and consider Edmundo González the true winner. An analysis of tally sheets supports this claim. The result is therefore clear.
The Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González reportedly received significantly more votes than claimed by the government, according to an AP analysis of tally sheets from the presidential election on July 28. This casts further doubt on the official victory declared by the government-aligned electoral board for incumbent Nicolás Maduro.
The news agency AP processed nearly 24,000 images of tally sheets published by the opposition on Friday, representing 79% of the voting machines. The vote counts were encrypted with QR codes for each protocol. AP decrypted these codes, analyzed the numbers, and tallied 10.26 million votes. According to these numbers, González received 6.98 million votes, while Maduro got 3.13 million.
The National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner on July 29 but did not publish individual results from polling stations. On Friday, it released updated results, claiming they were based on 96.87% of the tally sheets. According to these, Maduro received 6.4 million votes and González 5.3 million. Council President Elvis Amoroso attributed the late update to "massive attacks" on the "technological infrastructure."
US sees 'overwhelming evidence'
González and opposition leader María Corina Machado had already declared on Monday after the election that the opposition had secured tally sheets from polling stations across the country, showing that Maduro had lost by a landslide. Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets. The government claimed that hundreds of protesters had been arrested.
Several countries, including governments close to Maduro politically, questioned the result and demanded that Venezuela publish individual results. Maduro then called on the Supreme Court of the country to review the election results. However, the court is also considered government-loyal and not credible.
Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico tried to convince Maduro to allow an impartial review of the election results. The governments of the three countries called on the Venezuelan electoral authorities in a joint statement to "move swiftly and publish detailed election data."
The US government stated that there was overwhelming evidence of a victory for González. Meanwhile, Russian parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said that Russian election observers had witnessed Maduro's legitimate election victory. The US attempted to stir up tensions in the country.
Maduro insults González
The president of the Supreme Court, Caryslia Rodríguez, called on the presidential candidates and their parties to provide all necessary documents while the court tries to review the results.
Maduro used the opportunity to label González "the candidate of fascism" and promised to hand over all vote counts. Later, Maduro and his campaign manager, President of the National Assembly Jorge Rodríguez, attempted to discredit the tally sheets published online by the opposition by arguing that they lacked the signatures of the representative of the electoral council, the poll workers, and the party representatives.
The opposition initially offered voters the opportunity to view scanned copies of the tally sheets online. After criticism and threats from Maduro and his inner circle, the campaign team made the scans public.
Tally sheets, known as "actas" in Spanish, resemble long receipts. They have long been considered the ultimate proof of election results in Venezuela. The AP could not independently verify the authenticity of the 24,532 tally sheets provided by the opposition. 96% of the sheets could be analyzed. The remaining 4% of scans were too poor to be analyzed.
In response to the AP's analysis showing Edmundo González receiving a significant number of votes, the National Electoral Council, led by President Elvis Amoroso, attributed the late update of the election results to "massive attacks" on the "technological infrastructure." Nevertheless, the President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, remained adversarial towards González, labeling him as "the candidate of fascism."
Given that several countries questioned the official election results and demanded the publication of individual results, the US government publicly declared its belief in an overwhelming victory for Edmundo González, thereby challenging Maduro's claim of victory.
