US embassy cable - 04CARACAS2730

C O N F I D E N T I A L  CARACAS 002730 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
NSC FOR CBARTON 
USCINCSO ALSO FOR POLAD 
STATE PASS USAID FOR DCHA/OTI 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/12/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, KDEM, PHUM, VE 
SUBJECT: OPPOSITION REFERENDUM FRAUD THEORIES 
 
 
Classified By: Abelardo A. Arias, Acting Deputy Chief of Mission, for R 
easons 1.4(b) and (d). 
 
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Summary 
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1. (C) The Venezuelan opposition has developed theories -- 
though no solid evidence -- of alleged fraud and 
irregularities in the August 15 presidential recall 
referendum.  Among the theories, mathematicians have proposed 
that the election results were manipulated using a 
pre-determined percentage by state and a cap on "Si" votes 
that added votes to the pro-Chavez "No" option.  At the 
operative level, Chavez opponents charge, there was lack of 
appropriate custody over the software used to program voting 
machines and an unexplained 17-minute failure of the CANTV 
transmission network at a critical time.  The GOV's alleged 
manipulation of the electoral registry before August 15, the 
bulge in the electoral registry a month before the 
referendum, and unusual changes in poll workers immediately 
before also boost the opposition's doubts about the 
referendum.  While the opposition's theories, if true, would 
indicate manipulation and irregularities on a large scale, 
none alone would appear to be of sufficient magnitude to 
change the results.  End summary. 
 
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Fraud Theories Abound 
--------------------- 
 
2. (C) In the wake of the opposition's 40-60 defeat in the 
August 15 recall referendum against President Hugo Chavez, 
fraud and conspiracy theories have proliferated. 
Coordinadora representative and Gente de Petroleo leader Juan 
Fernandez laid out the principal arguments to poloff on 
August 24.  There are two mathematical observations that to 
the Coordinadora suggest electoral fraud: 
 
-- "2,1,0"  The opposition claims a state-level analysis 
suggests that each state was assigned one of three possible 
percentage outcomes (mathematically expressed as a 2,1,0 
series).  States with high opposition support, for example, 
were assigned a closer percentage split between the "Si" and 
"No" votes (prejudicing the "Si" votes); areas with lower 
opposition support were assigned wider spreads that gave more 
votes to "No" than were actually cast. 
 
-- "El Tope"  Some mathematicians looking at the voting 
machine level note an unusually high recurrence of similar 
numbers (affecting between 3,000 and 4,000 machines) for the 
"Si" votes, leading them to conclude that a cap ("tope") had 
been applied.  According to this theory, votes cast for "Si" 
in excess of this cap were applied to the "No" option, which 
did surprisingly well in some pro-opposition strongholds. 
Fernandez said the mathematicians believe that the cap and 
"2,1,0" phenomena are connected.  Fernandez also said that 
mathematicians confirmed evidence of tampering by applying 
the "Law of the First Digit" (aka Benford's Law), the same 
mathematical principle used to detect Enron's manipulation of 
energy markets. 
 
3. (C) Constitutional lawyer Tulio Alvarez_, who is leading 
the Coordinadora's special commission to document the alleged 
fraud, told reporters August 22 the mathematical phenomena 
would have been undetectable had it not been for the 
unprecedented 27 percent abstention rates.  The high voter 
turnout, he claimed, forced many more "topes" to be imposed 
by the machines than what was previously planned. 
 
CNE Response:  Jorge Rodriguez told reporters August 17 that 
it is expected that voting tables would have similar results. 
 In presenting examples to support his argument, he showed 
data from similar tables, not/not from the voting machines, 
which misrepresented the opposition's argument about similar 
results at the machine level. 
 
International Observers Response:  The Carter Center's 
Jennifer McCoy told reporters August 17 that the cap 
 
phenomenon could be seen among "No" results as well.  McCoy 
later sent a letter to the Coordinadora August 26 stating 
that, after consulting a Stanford mathematician and a 
Bolivian pollster, the Carter Center concluded that the 
recurrence of similar numbers is statistically probable.  The 
OAS's Edgardo Ries told poloff August 21 that similar results 
in a voting center tends to reinforce the validity of the 
results; it would have been more suspect had voting machines 
in the same electoral precinct varied substantially. 
Comment:  Post does not have the expertise to judge the merit 
of these mathematical arguments. 
 
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Ghosts in the Machine 
--------------------- 
 
4. (C) Fernandez gave two possible explanations for how the 
mathematical manipulation was carried out.  Either the 
software had been tampered with, he said, or the data 
transmission was compromised.  Fernandez complained that the 
CNE had not given them full access.  He claims Coordinadora 
informatics specialists were only given limited access to 
portions of the code.  Coordinadora representatives also 
charged publicly that the CNE distributed thousands of 
machines to centers prior to the audit. 
 
CNE/Smartmatic Response:  The CNE's Rodriguez said publicly 
the Coordinadora had full access to the software used to 
program the machines and had representatives present when the 
machines were individually programmed before being sent to 
the field.  Smartmatic officials told emboffs in June that 
the CNE and political actors would have access (read-only 
copies) to only about five percent of the total code used to 
operate the machines, principally because of proprietary 
reasons.  Mugica said the CNE and political actors would be 
allowed to audit -- but would not be able to alter -- the 
relevant codes for tabulating votes thanks to a three-step 
verification process within the company to certify the 
software was as advertised.  Smartmatic officials claim the 
programs exhibit a unique digital signature that would be 
altered had the source code been altered.  Smartmatic 
President Antonio Mugica told poloff August 18 his company 
had given the Coordinadora copies of the digital signature of 
every machine to check the authenticity. 
 
International Observer Response:  Observers were not present 
for most of the software development process, though they 
have publicly expressed confidence in the performance of the 
voting machines. 
 
Comment:  It appears likely the Coordinadora did not have 
sufficient participation in the development and loading of 
the software and transportation of the machines to voting 
centers, making manipulation a possibility.  Also, the audit 
of the machines was a one-day affair with a sample of 
machines.  Some 14,000 of the more than 19,000 machines had 
already been distributed around the country. 
 
5. (C) Fernandez also called into question an unexplained 
outage of the CANTV transmission network between 8:12 and 
8:29 p.m. on election night.  A Venezuelan judge documented 
it at CANTV's request.  According to Fernandez, CANTV said it 
could not account for the data transmission of at least 200 
machines, though Fernandez believes there were more. 
Fernandez said that since the voting machines can receive 
data as well as transmit, it was possible for a "phantom 
server" to intercept the data and send altered data to the 
CNE as well as back to the voting machine. 
 
Smartmatic Response:  Mugica claimed his machines cannot be 
remotely re-programmed and noted that the machines are only 
connected to the network for transmission, amounting to no 
more than two minutes per machine. 
 
International Observer Response:  OAS and Carter Center 
observers found no evidence of manipulation, though Carter 
Center observer Edgardo Mimica confirmed the outage had taken 
place.  Observers did not perform audits of CNE servers 
handling the information. 
 
Comment:  CNE rules had the transmission taking place 
before/before the tally sheets were printed.  The timing is 
significant because CNE Director Rodriguez announced at 7:50 
p.m. that polling stations would stay open until midnight, 
instead of 8:00 p.m. as previously announced.  As CNE public 
announcements are notorious for not filtering down to the 
voting centers, it is likely that many of the 19,662 voting 
machines attempted to connect to the network a few minutes 
after 8:00 p.m., coinciding with the reported blackout.  This 
fact is significant in that only voting machines closing at 
8:00 p.m. would have been affected, and might not be detected 
by the two supposedly random samples taken by the CNE for 
audit purposes. 
 
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1-2-Switcharoo 
-------------- 
 
6. (C) A few press reports surfaced on election day that some 
voters noticed on their paper receipt that their "Si" vote 
was preceded by the number Q" rather than the number "2", 
the code assigned to the "Si" option. 
 
CNE/Smartmatic Response:  Smartmatic officials said such an 
occurrence was impossible. 
 
International Observer Response:  Both Mimica and OAS chief 
observer Edgardo Reis told poloff they did not find any such 
cases in the 354 machines audited. 
 
Comment:  This alleged fraud was the product of election day 
rumors.  It probably had some resonance later among Chavez 
opponents because the results announced by the CNE were the 
reverse of what exit polls showed. 
--------------------------------- 
Masters of The Electoral Universe 
--------------------------------- 
 
7. (C) The Coordinadora also goes back to the weeks before 
the election with its theories and allegations when the 
electoral registry plumped up by an unprecedented two million 
new voters in the two months before the referendum, 
attributed mainly to the GOV's massive identity card/voter 
registration drive.  Coordinadora electoral chief Amado 
Dounia estimated prior to the election that a registry of 12 
million would give the opposition 3.8 million votes, just 
over the threshold needed to recall Chavez.  He estimated the 
GOV would get just 3.4 million voters, using available 
polling data and time studies of the election procedures. 
The addition of two million new voters (from mostly pro-GOV 
social classes), however, changed his analysis to show a 
possible GOV victory. 
 
8. (C) Dounia doubted the new voters actually turned out to 
vote based on his tracking of the flow of voters on election 
day.  The Coordinadora's network of witnesses at each table 
reported that nearly seven million people had voted by 9:00 
p.m. on election day.  By midnight, however, the system was 
projecting 10 million voters.  Three million additional votes 
in three hours, Dounia estimated, would have required all 
machines to be working at a rate of one minute per vote, much 
faster than what had generally been observed during that 
time.  Dounia suggests that the new voters were fraudulently 
added en masse to the "No" option late in electoral day.  He 
had no theory, however, for how such a fraud could be carried 
out. 
 
9. (C) Dounia also told poloff that the CNE changed voting 
centers for some 300,000 voters just days before the 
election.  Forty thousand of these voters were able to 
correct the problem, but the remaining 260,000 voters were 
forced to go to centers far from home or to abstain from 
voting.  Dounia accused the CNE of intentionally trying to 
eliminate "Yes" votes using this method.  The quantity could 
have been important, he noted, were it a tight race. 
Additionally, Chavez opponents allege that last minute 
changes of poll workers affected the efficiency of voting 
centers. 
 
CNE/Smartmatic Response:  The electoral registry was a source 
of contention within the CNE.  CNE Director Rodriguez even 
filed charges against fellow Director Sobella Mejias because 
the latter allegedly had failed to expunge thousands of 
deceased persons from the registry.  The pro-opposition 
Mejias claimed she had been shut out of changes to the 
registry. 
 
International Observers:  The Carter Center's Mimica told 
poloff privately the last minute changes to the electoral 
registry were unfair, though the observers did not criticize 
the CNE publicly. 
 
Comment:  The GOV's "Mission Identity" to give identity cards 
to millions of Venezuelans and foreigners had few controls to 
ensure integrity of the cards, the only proof needed to vote. 
 The CNE was a doormat to the new names presented by Mission 
Identity, pouring them into the electoral registry.  Also, 
some 200,000 names were added to the registry days after it 
was closed.  Coordinadora representatives complained to 
emboffs that the registry was changing daily even the week 
before the referendum.  The GOV's manipulation of the 
registry was a significant factor in Chavez's victory. 
 
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Comment 
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10. (C) We do not know whether the opposition's allegations, 
if they turn out to be true, would sufficiently alter the 
results to overturn Chavez's victory.  No one theory alone 
appears to be of sufficient magnitude to be a silver bullet. 
The technical arguments raised by the opposition will have to 
be evaluated by experts in light of realities of the voting 
system.  International observation, though imperfect, did not 
detect any evidence that would support the opposition's 
claims, but then again, these would not be things readily 
evident to persons eyeing the process at the voting 
precincts.  Some opposition allegations would require a 
significant number of accomplices in the CNE, the military, 
Smartmatic and even CANTV.  It seems reasonable that 
Smartmatic and CANTV, both firms that have an interest in 
avoiding allegations of impropriety, would probably not risk 
company health by engaging in fraud.  This would not rule 
out, however, the actions of specific employees, and in fact, 
the opposition's theories aim more at the GOV and the CNE, 
not the companies.  Chavez opponents remain intent, 
nonetheless, on swimming against the strong tide of opinion 
blessed by international election observer organizations. 
McFarland 
 
 
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      2004CARACA02730 - CONFIDENTIAL