Venezuela, a true stolen election

Now widely recognized that Maduro's re-election a fraud. The NY Times a Wall Street Journal articles linked below.

Venezuela’s electoral body announced on Monday that the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, comfortably won another six years in office, beating his main opponent by seven percentage points in a vote that was marred by widespread irregularities.

But partial election results, provided to The New York Times by a group of researchers associated with Venezuela’s main opposition alliance, supply new evidence that calls the official result into question.

Their figures suggest that an opposition candidate, a retired diplomat named Edmundo González, actually beat Mr. Maduro by more than 30 percentage points. The researchers’ estimate of the result — 66 percent to 31 percent — is similar to the result obtained by an independent exit poll conducted on Election Day across the country.

And the Wall Street Journal

The Fight for Freedom in Venezuela. ... as Maduro steals the vote.

Another tragedy is unfolding in Venezuela, as President Nicolás Maduro tries to steal another election. The Biden Administration has been caught flat-footed again and is left pleading with Mr. Maduro not to behave as the dictator he is.

The battle for human freedom never ends, but there are hinge moments when change for the better is possible. Sunday’s election in Venezuela was one of those moments, as the opposition turned out voters en masse. But Mr. Maduro won’t let the votes be properly counted, and now his thugs are hunting down opposition leaders to throw in jail.

The regime hasn’t tried to disguise its intention to steal the vote. On the afternoon of the election, it barred the three opposition members of the National Electoral Council (CNE) from entering the council’s Caracas headquarters where they were supposed to referee vote counting. That night the electronic transmission of voting data from around the country was suddenly interrupted. Hours later Mr. Maduro was pronounced the winner.

The opposition had anticipated the fraud. It instructed its observers at polling stations to secure copies (or images) of the tally sheets, signed off by both sides on Sunday evening. It says it has those documents, covering more than 80% of voting tables and that they confirm the victory of Edmundo González Urrutia by 2:1 over Mr. Maduro. Those results match pre-election polls of likely voters, as well as exit polls taken Sunday.