Venezuelan Democracy

From Random Hipatia

At around 5am, the polling places were setup and then shortly after opened in T’chira, and by all accounts it was an excellent day in Venezuela as a whole, with about 2/3 of the vote going to the re-election of Chavez. But it could have gone differently.

One reason that elections work well in Venezuela is that everyone has a chance to vote. You do not have different voting systems by region, or more specifically the mysterious plague of broken machines and long lines that always seem to only occur in poor neighborhoods in the U.S. Having elections on a Sunday, rather than during the work week, also maximizes the opportunity, especially for the working poor, to turn out.

Another interesting twist in Venezuela is the use of touch screen voting machines. In America, we have touch screen voting in some places, and generally they have produced fraudulent and at times defective results, such as loosing 18,000 votes from a heavily democratic area in one congressional race alone. These machines in Venezuela, unlike the ones found in America, print the ballot for you after you made your choices on the touch screen, which you then review and drop in. Hence, no votes can be lost, no uncertainty of what the “one armed voter” may have voted for you, the process is transparent, and there is a paper trail for recounts. More importantly, voting is the same and standardized and counted the same way, whether one is in a rich boroughs in Caracas, or in far away T’chira.

Still, Rosales had a strong showing as the opposition was united and clearly motivated. If they alone had came out to the polls effectively and most of the population sat around, like happens so often in the U.S., they could have won, much like in Ohio which had no long lines in suburban districts but a mysterious 99% voter turnout, while perhaps only 40% of those in Cleveland got to exercise their vote. Fortunately, everyone both choose and was enabled to come out for elections in Venezuela, not just a special few.

I was going to upload some pictures taken of the polling in T’Chira, but as is too often the case, there have been mysterious issues with Internet connectivity through the Caribbean basin today, a topic, and the history of Cable & Wireless, which I will write about another time. I hope to revise this later when they can be uploaded somewhere with sufficient and reliable connectivity.

If one insists on a genuine electoral democratic society, rather than a false one, that can only happen when all the people are treated equally in elections, and all are enabled with the opportunity to vote. Today Venezuela demonstrated for the world what genuine electoral democracy is about.

In contrast to Venezuela, last month in the U.S., Missouri and Tennessee were very close races for the Senate, but do not fear, Diebold Touchscreen are here to count the vote for you. Yes, both are Diebold states. In both Missouri and Florida, where some early voting had already occurred, these machines had already generated a number of anomalous incidents; all of them, incidentally involving Democratic voters who’s votes were recorded for a Republican candidate, much like every documented case of mis-counted votes in Ohio two years ago. You would expect incidents to happen both ways, wouldn’t you, or am I expected to believe Republicans just take it under the chin and never complain when they loose their vote??

Arizona is another close state that is a “machine” state, and with a history of problems. Of course, when we used to refer to “machines”, like Daily’s setup in Chicago, these were still done with people. Maybe they were simply presentient using the term back then.

Virginia, which was another close race, used a number of different machines, depending on the county. Of course, while most people focus on Diebold, all four manufacturers of voting machines in the country are strong donors to the Republican party. By county, we find in Virginia Diebold optical scanning “accu-vote” in Louden and Stafford, those same optical machines which proved remarkably blind in Florida in the past. Virginia also has Saquoi, Hart Intercivic, and AVC, so the gang is all here to count your votes for you there.

It would be interesting to see a map of “close” states and counties correlated with the voting machines in use, which is what I was looking to assemble. The information is too scattered to assemble such an election “map” in a timely fashion on my own, however. Comparing exit polling with reported results in such states, based on voting methods used, would I think be most enlightening. But it is just the kind of study nobody would wish to fund.

Washington state is another interesting Senate race. They had to do three manual recounts to confirm who is governor. That is okay, Diebold eliminates those problems with their papertrailless voting, so you never have to worry about electing the “wrong candidate”. So unlike in Venezuela, when voting in the U.S., take your pills, vote, and be happy. When you pull the lever on your “one armed voter”, it may be more like playing blackjack in Vegas than electoral Democracy; after all, you are also playing against house odds and it will count your vote the same way the casino counts your money…