Venezuela: Assembly campaign head asks electoral council to check vote tally

August 4, 2017
Issue 
Jorge Rodriguez

The head of the campaign for Venezuela's National Constituent Assembly (ANC), Jorge Rodriguez, said on August 2 that the National Electoral Council (CNE) had been asked to complete the audit of the electoral process following the July 30 vote.

Rodriguez insisted that the only valid results of the ANC election are those provided by the CNE, which originally counted 8,089,320 votes.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he had personally asked for the ballot recount.

Smartmatic director Antonio Mugica told an August 2 news conference in London that they had detected "manipulation of the participation data" during the poll. Mugica claimed to have identified that the "difference between the announced figure and the number produced by the system is at least 1 million voters."

Smartmatic has provided the technological platform for voting and services for Venezuelan elections since 2004.

Rodriguez said there could be strong pressure on the owners of Smartmatic by international powers, which have political and business interests in Venezuela.

"He is contradicting his own statements (on previous processes), moreover, his company provides services which do not replace in any way Venezuela's electoral power," said Rodriguez.

He stressed that despite the violent actions promoted by sectors of the opposition last Sunday, the electoral event was successful.

"The world that attacks Venezuela is watching with astonishment that we have three days of peace, after the election everyone understood the message, at least the people," he said.

[Abridged from TeleSUR English.]

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