Opposition supporters in a demonstration holding their alleged voting records. Photo: Efecto Cocuyo.
By Mision Verdad – Aug 19, 2024
Evidence of irregularities and falsification of the “voting records” distributed by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González on a website continues to grow. These supposed records have been used to justify the narrative of the alleged victory of González, the former PUD candidate, as well as a new destabilization campaign and coup d’état attempt.
In this sense, the case of Tinaquillo, a city in Cojedes state, is illustrative.
Spanish writer and researcher Román Cuesta, a specialist in data and fake news, published an analysis on his X account about the “voting records” from the presidential elections of July 28 in this town in the central Venezuelan plains.
Cuesta pointed out that because it is subject to public review, María Corina Machado’s website has already “received two audits,” according to its administrators, without correcting the irregularities that have been detected and reported.
85% of records are fake
The researcher made a simple sample selection of a Venezuelan municipality to review all the alleged records available for that location and randomly chose the Tinaquillo municipality.
According to the website, 61 “voting records” were generated in Tinaquillo, referring to 61 polling stations. The analyst reviewed the 61 complete documents and concluded that 52 were fakes. Cuesta pointed out irregularities such as fixed signatures, presumably false signatures, incomplete QR codes, and a lack of digital signature codes from voting machines.
He also highlighted irregular patterns and indicators of forgery in the signatures. Several signatures looked more like a drawing than a personal signature. Other alleged records had no signatures at all, a serious irregularity for this document.
It should be added that, according to electoral methods in Venezuela, the voting records are signed directly on the touch screen of the voting machines. This process is mandatory for table members, witnesses, and machine operators. It is carried out with ease due to the size of the screen and its layout.
After the slips—erroneously called “voting records”—are printed, the staff at the desk sometimes write a new signature by hand on the physical paper, but this is irrelevant and unnecessary since the signature is reflected on the screen.
In several cases detected by Cuesta, it can be seen how some receipts have double signatures, one made digitally and another possibly made physically on paper. However, the signatures are very different in many cases, reflecting a likely forgery.
In the review, another common feature was incomplete QR codes and, in other cases, records without the tab referring to the machine code and electoral table, that is, the digital signature of the voting machine.
Cuesta said that the page administrators have not corrected this irregularity, which has been pointed out since the alleged records were published.
In his opinion, this could be corrected by scanning the document again and posting it on the webpage.
According to the Spanish analyst, 85% of the alleged voting records from the municipality of Tinaquillo have problems with signatures, incomplete QR codes, and a lack of machine codes.
The problem of QR codes and machine codes is especially important since the records cannot offer reliable information about a polling station and, consequently, cannot be verified in the case of an incomplete or absent QR code.
These issues raise the presumption of data tampering or editing of the opposition’s alleged voting records, as established by the metadata analysis. If these records have been edited and new numbers have been added to favor Edmundo González by eliminating the QR codes and machine codes, the information will be unverifiable.
It is likely that the opposition used real records that were scanned and edited. In this case, the images would have been deliberately cropped to remove the QR and machine codes.
This would allow the same serial receipt to be used and edited many times, with fixed signatures and the aim of fabricating the alleged results at the tables. With incomplete QR codes and no machine codes, said documents, once again, cannot be verified.
Let us emphasize that when subjected to various metadata analyses, a pattern of 70-85% of opposition “voting records” showing traces of digital editing has been found.
The massive falsification of records by the Machado-González campaign is one of the critical issues in the post-electoral conflict that has been induced in Venezuela. These documents are being used by foreign governments and institutions to delegitimize the Venezuelan elections and, thereby, promote a regime-change operation.
Currently, the votes are subject to an expert appraisal by the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) alongside Venezuelan and foreign specialists. The verification of physical records offered to the court by the National Electoral Council (CNE) is being carried out.
It should be added that re-elected President Nicolás Maduro and other opposition candidates delivered the TSJ the voting records they obtained at polling stations on July 28.
The absence of Edmundo González, who had declared himself the winner and was supported by the United States, was highlighted in this report. To date, he has not formally filed any challenge against the elections in any Venezuelan court.
The former candidate did not appear before the highest court and thus fell into contempt of court.
González also did not present any electoral records or supporting documentation, which is why no record published by María Corina Machado’s team on their website can be subject to expert appraisal apart from the judicial process.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SF
Misión Verdad
Misión Verdad is a Venezuelan investigative journalism website with a socialist perspective in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution
