There is no evidence that Venezuela’s electoral system was the target of a cyberattack during last month’s elections, the head of the Carter Center’s election observation mission told AFP, confirming figures that suggest the opposition candidate will win.
On election night, the president of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), Elvis Amoroso, declared the victory of President Nicolás Maduro, but without providing data from polling stations and claiming that the CNE had been the victim of a computer attack.
“We have no evidence of this,” Jennie Lincoln, head of the Carter Center delegation invited to observe the elections in Venezuela, told AFP.
The CNE has not released detailed results of the vote, claiming the delay was due to a hacker attack, while Maduro denounced what he called a “criminal cyber-fascist coup.”
“There are companies that monitor and know when a denial-of-service attack is happening, so there was no denial-of-service attack in Venezuela on election day or election night,” Lincoln said from Atlanta, Georgia, where the center is located.
The transmission of election data is now done “over telephone lines and satellite phones. So it is not even done by computer,” she said.
Opponents and many observers believe that the delay is intended to avoid the announcement of actual results that would show opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia as the winner.
The CNE confirmed Maduro’s victory on Friday with 52% of the votes cast, but without publishing the results from the polling stations.
Meanwhile, the opposition has uploaded voting results to a website which allegedly show that Gonzalez Urrutia won with 67%.
“Even though the conditions were very unequal, the Venezuelan people went to vote,” Lincoln said.
“The great irregularity of election day was the CNE’s lack of transparency and blatant disregard for its rules of the game when it comes to determining the true voice of the Venezuelan people,” she said.
The center “calculated the same numbers” from the available data as the opposition and – together with other organizations and universities – confirmed Gonzalez as the winner with over 60% of the votes cast.
Maduro and Jorge Rodriguez, his close collaborator and president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, claim the figures are false. Rodriguez even presented documents that he claims prove this.
“I think that was an act,” Lincoln said.
Numerous countries, including the United States and several Latin American states, have recognized González Urrutia as the winner and called on Venezuela to publish election results.
Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, which have good relations with Maduro’s government, pushed for an “impartial review” of the outcome.
