US embassy cable - 05CARACAS3113

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CARACAS 003113 
 
SIPDIS 
 
HQSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD 
DEPT PASS TO AID/OTI RPORTER 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/18/2020 
TAGS: PGOV, KDEM, VE 
SUBJECT: CAPEL AUDIT SUGGEST VOTER ROLLS UNTRUSTWORTHY 
 
REF: A. CARACAS 02201 
 
     B. CARACAS 02441 
 
Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROBERT R. DOWNES FOR 1.4 (D) 
 
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Summary 
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1.  (C)  In a meeting with poloff October 11, Ricardo 
Valverde, the Program Director for the umbrella organization 
for the Center for Electoral Assistance and Promotion 
(CAPEL), said CAPEL's audit would likely conclude that the 
electoral registry is too unreliable to hold meaningful 
elections.  The Venezuelan National Identification Office's 
poor record keeping and National Electoral Council (CNE) 
foot-dragging have delayed the audit, however, making a 
report unlikely to be delivered before December.  Controversy 
still surrounds CAPEL's work, as questions have surfaced 
about the organization's methodology.  Despite these doubts, 
it is encouraging that CAPEL appears willing to denounce CNE 
irregularities, but CAPEL representatives have made strong 
statements about holding the CNE accountable before, only to 
walk away from them when tested.  End summary. 
 
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Background 
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2.  (C) The Center for Electoral Assistance and Promotion 
(CAPEL) is a Costa Rica-based organization that provides 
technical assistance to electoral bodies in the hemisphere. 
In late June 2005, CAPEL signed what was described as a 
"multimillion dollar contract" with the National Electoral 
Council (CNE) (ref a) to conduct an audit of the electoral 
register.  CAPEL has refused to discuss the terms of the 
audit with anyone not participating, citing its contractual 
obligations to the CNE.  It appears, however, that CAPEL is 
relying heavily on CNE access, expertise, and officials to 
conduct what had been billed as an independent study.  As a 
result, the opposition, which had been invited to observe the 
audit under restricted conditions, has withheld its 
participation until CAPEL explains its methodology. 
Meanwhile, domestic observation group Ojo Electoral is 
observing the audit and had considered performing a special 
study to complement CAPEL's work. 
 
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CAPEL Finds Registry in Bad Shape 
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3.  (C) On October 11, poloff met with Ricardo Valverde, the 
Program Director of the Interamerican Institute of Human 
Rights (IIDH), the umbrella organization for CAPEL.  Valverde 
said the study would likely conclude the electoral registry 
was fundamentally flawed, but that the errors spanned decades 
and did not occur during President Chavez's presidency alone. 
 He noted, for example, that the National Identification 
Office's (Onidex) birth records were so incomplete that the 
existence of 80 percent of the voters in CAPEL's sample could 
not be verified.  When CAPEL warned the CNE of this problem 
the CNE directors at first tried to blame CAPEL's 
methodology, then tried to persuade auditors to examine only 
the voters whose records could be found.  CAPEL agreed to the 
CNE's suggestion and found that, in some cases, the birth 
records consisted only of the person's name on a piece of 
paper with an Onidex official's stamp.  The auditors also 
continued to examine the list of voters with missing birth 
records to determine any patterns and have found that most 
problems lay in rural areas. 
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But Will Anyone Else Find Out? 
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4.  (C) Contrary to what IIDH Executive Director Roberto 
Cuellar told PolCouns September 26, Valverde said Onidex's 
inadequate records and CNE foot dragging in handing over 
material would delay CAPEL's report for several weeks.  In 
fact, auditors did not receive all the material they needed 
until October 9 and technicians will probably not finish 
processing the information until October 15.  He speculated 
that a preliminary report, if rushed, could be completed some 
time in November, but he did not favor hurrying the project. 
 
5.  (C) During last week's meeting between Cuellar and CNE 
leaders to iron out the auditors' problems in getting access 
to material, Valverde said Cuellar warned the CNE about 
mishandling the report.  (Note: Cuellar told PolCouns 
September 26 that CAPEL was concerned that the CNE would 
publish only the favorable sections of the report.)  Cuellar 
said the CNE had three options: publish the report in its 
entirety, not distribute it at all, or publish parts of it. 
Cuellar encouraged the CNE to publish the report, which would 
be the best solution, and noted that not publishing it would 
be unwise but within the organization's discretion. 
However, Cuellar warned that CAPEL would consider the third 
option a breach of good faith and would distribute the report 
itself.  After that warning, Valverde said the CNE agreed to 
publish the full final report. 
 
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Doubts About Audit Grow 
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6.  (C) Emboffs have met with representatives from several 
organizations in the past few weeks that have expressed 
concerns about CAPEL's audit.  On October 14, Sumate Director 
Maria Corina Machado told the Ambassador and PolCouns that 
CAPEL appeared to be relying on CNE selected staff to carry 
out field work, raising questions about the audit's autonomy. 
In addition, Sumate reviewed CAPEL's original proposal and 
has found several potential methodological problems, 
including the possible exclusion of new voters from the audit 
and uncorrected biases in its random sampling method.  NDI 
Program Officer Carlos Claramount, a liaison to the only 
third-party audit observer Ojo Electoral, told emboffs a 
visiting NDI technical advisor told Ojo that he had found 
similar errors in CAPEL's methodology, which he said would 
make it impossible to define the study's margin of error. 
 
7.  (C) On September 30 Robert Ansuini, a former CNE official 
who worked on the electoral registry, told poloff that he 
found several defects that could potentially allow the CNE to 
pad the voter rolls undetected.  According to Ansuini, the 
CNE used to issue each state new voter identification 
("cedula") numbers based on their projections of new 
registrants for the year. The cedula numbers that were not 
used were dropped from the system and the new numbers would 
start where the last series ended.  Ansuini alleges that 
older citizens who have registered to vote in the past two 
years are receiving the previously discarded cedula numbers 
from their birth year instead of a number from the year they 
actually registered.  Ansuini said he had raised this issue 
with the CAPEL team, but they did not seem interested. 
 
8.  (C) Opposition political parties continue to criticize 
CAPEL's unwillingness to explain its methodology and on 
September 13 sent a letter to CAPEL requesting a suspension 
of the audit until the opposition is included.  As in 
poloff's previous meeting (ref b), Valverde defended CAPEL's 
decision to deal only with the CNE as complying with a 
contract with a member organization and denied that such a 
relationship meant CAPEL was biased toward the Venezuelan 
electoral board. Valverde was highly critical of the 
opposition and qualified their choice not to observe the 
audit as a grave strategic error and a huge waste of an 
opportunity.  Valverde acknowledged the opposition's 
observers would have been participating under severe 
restrictions, but thought the rules still allowed for 
sufficient insight into the quality of the government's 
records.  Valverde said the opposition's complaints about not 
knowing the audit's parameters were untrue as CAPEL had 
called a meeting September 8 to explain its plans, but the 
opposition's sole representative walked out before the 
meeting began because CNE officials were not present. 
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Comment 
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9.  (C) Despite suspected flaws and biases in CAPEL's 
methodology, its auditors are finding significant problems 
with the electoral registry that suggest meaningful elections 
using the current voter rolls are doubtful.  However, CAPEL 
and IIDH representatives have made strong statements about 
holding the CNE accountable before, only to walk away from 
them when tested.  Therefore, the final report may not 
contain as strong a rejection of the registry's unreliability 
as Valverde implies it will.  Valverde's and the opposition's 
criticism of each other have some merit.  Both sides have 
forfeited a golden opportunity to ensure a more balanced 
election by outing CNE misconduct and ineptitude, but lack of 
communication and CNE manipulation will keep the audit 
shrouded in unnecessary mystery and likely undermine any 
potential utility of the report. 
 
Brownfield