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Comment by culi

1 year ago

What's the mile long rap sheet though? The group that's alleging fraud (AltaVista) is using images of printed receipts from different voting places as a sample to estimate the final vote. That group also said it's same technique resulted in election outcomes that are within 2 points or less of the announced outcome for 2021, 2018, and 2015.

This seems like a new and unique accusation for Venezuela

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/31/world/americas/venezuela-...

> What's the mile long rap sheet though?

Venezuela’s terrible electoral record post Chavez.

  • And the fact the gov quietly funds roving mobs of bike gangs to intimidate the populace. On top of that they completely control 10% of the Venezulas cities.

    > Human Rights Watch described colectivos as "armed gangs who use violence with impunity" to harass political opponents of the Venezuelan government.[10][11] Amnesty International calls them "armed pro-government supporters who are tolerated or supported by the authorities".[12] Colectivos have attacked anti-government protesters[1] and Venezuelan opposition television staff, sent death threats to journalists, and once tear-gassed the Vatican envoy.[10] Through violence and intimidation, by 2019 colectivos increasingly became a means of quashing the opposition and maintaining political power;[9][13] Maduro called on them during the 2019 Venezuelan blackouts.[14][15]

    And that in poor areas these armed gangs are directly involved in bringing people to voting stations

    > Every member of a colectivo is required to bring ten individuals to vote at polls during elections.[34] Over time, colectivos became more heavily armed and their criminal activity increased.[3] A small number of groups maintain community and cultural functions; most are "criminal gangs with immense social control", who "work alongside the security forces, often doing their dirty work for them", according to InSight Crime.[6] Members can be difficult to identify because they often wear masks and do not have license plates on their motorcycles.[9]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colectivo_(Venezuela)

    The fact there were armed guards around the voting stations

It seems Maduro was way behind in the polls.

https://www.as-coa.org/articles/poll-tracker-venezuelas-2024...

  • Depends which polls you're looking at. So far, no non-US-linked pollsters have shown Maduro behind (that is, behind the US backed opposition candidate). If you look at something like Hinterlaces you get a very different picture