Venezuelan recall referendum of 2004
Encyclopedia
The Venezuelan recall referendum of 15 August 2004 was a referendum
to determine whether Hugo Chávez
, the current President of Venezuela, should be recalled
from office. The result of the referendum was to not recall Chávez.
The recall referendum was announced on 8 June 2004 by the National Electoral Council
(CNE) after Venezuelan opposition succeeded in collecting the number of signatures required by the 1999 Constitution
to effect a recall.
and sanctioned by the electorate in a referendum. Under its provisions, an elected official can be subjected to a recall referendum if a petition gathers signatures from 20% of the corresponding electorate. Thus, to order a presidential recall vote in 2004– for which the constituency was the national electorate as a whole– some 2.4 million signatures were needed.
In August 2003, about 3.2 million signatures were presented by Súmate
, a Venezuelan volunteer civil association, founded in 2002 by a group of Venezuelan citizens. These signatures were rejected by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on the grounds that they had been collected prematurely; i.e., before the mid-point of the presidential term.
In September 2003, The Economist
reported that the government used a "rapid reaction" squad to raid the offices of CNE (the government body overseeing the petition drive), where the petitions were stored.
In November 2003, the opposition collected a new set of signatures, with 3.6 million names produced in four days. The CNE rejected the petition, saying that only 1.9 million were valid, while 1.1 million were dubious and 460,000 completely invalid. It was claimed that some of those who signed the petition had done so under duress. The invalid signatures included people who had died many years earlier, infants, and foreigners. Of the signatures categorised as dubious, 876,017 all had the personal details written in the same handwriting except for the signature itself. Reaction to the decision to reject the petition (for the second time) resulted in riots that led to nine dead, 339 arrested, and 1,200 injured.
The petitioners appealed to the Electoral Chamber of the Venezuelan Supreme Court. The court reinstated over 800,000 of the disputed signatures, bringing the total to 2.7 million well above the 2.4 million needed to authorise the referendum. However, about a week later, the Constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court overturned the Electoral chamber's ruling alleging that the latter did not have jurisdiction for that ruling.
The list of signatories was subsequently collected by the government
The names of petition signers were posted publicly online in what became known as the Tascón List
. The president of the Venezuelan Workers Confederation was quoted by the Associated Press
as claiming that the Chávez government had begun dismissing petition signers from government ministries, the state oil company, the state water company, the Caracas Metro
, and public hospital
s and municipal governments controlled by Chávez's party. The Associated Press also quoted Venezuela's Health minister
as justifying petition related layoffs by saying "all those who have signed to activate the recall referendum against President Chávez should be fired from the Health Ministry". He retracted these remarks several days later by saying that they were his own personal opinions and not a matter of public policy.
As a compromise, the CNE set aside five days in May 2004 to allow the owners of disputed signatures to confirm that they did, in fact, back the referendum call: this was known as the reparo process. At the end of that verification effort, the total number of signatures stood at 2,436,830, according to the CNE. Thus, the target had been reached and the referendum could take place. During that time, thousands of forged ID cards and equipment to create forged ID cards were confiscated by the police. Supporters of Chávez believed that the opposition used these to forge signatures. The opposition claimed that the equipment and the ID cards were planted.
The CNE later admitted that 15,863 signatures of those signatures that were verified in May 2004 belonged to people who had died in 2003.
would have taken over and served out the rest of Chávez's presidency (in accordance with Article 233 of the Constitution, above). With the vote called for 15 August, Chávez was not yet into the last two years of his term in office; an unfavourable result would therefore have meant the calling of fresh presidential elections within the following 30 days. Chávez had expressed his clear intention to stand in the election, had he been recalled; the anti-Chávez factions, however, maintained that he would have been disqualified from doing so.
declared "I am working to overthrow Chávez. Violence will allow us to take him out. Chávez must die like a dog." to the Venezuelan daily "El Nacional
". There were echoes of the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt in Pérez's claims that all Chavista institutions (such as the Supreme Court and National Assembly) would need to be dismantled under a junta governing for a "transition period" of 2 or 3 years.
(the civial association organizing the recall effort) received a US$ $31,000 grant in September 2003 from the United States National Endowment for Democracy
, an organisation funded by the United States government. The grant, earmarked for "election education", was used to promote voter education about the constitutional recall process. The Chávez government is prosecuting four Súmate officials for high treason and conspiracy, for accepting funds from the U.S. Congress.
Chávez supporters see the Súmate NED grant as an example of the U.S. intent to overthrow him. Senior U.S. administration officials met with Venezuelan opposition leaders in the months and weeks before the attempted coup of 11 April 2002, although the administration has insisted that they did not support the overthrow of Chávez' government.
Numerous pre-referendum polls, both by opposition and by pro-Chávez groups, during the previous months and weeks predicted the No vote to win by a margin of between 5% and 31%. For example, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc. and DATOS
, both commissioned by the opposition, found margins in favour of No by 5% and 12% respectively in June 2004; Datanálisis found a margin of 14% in favour of Chávez in June. On 11 August, Robert Jensen
wrote that recent polls ranged from 8% to 31% for margins in favour of the No vote.
Translated into English:
For the recall to be successful, there were three conditions:
A record number of voters turned out to defeat the recall attempt with a 59% "no" vote. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter
, who was in Venezuela to observe the electoral process, said of the patiently waiting Venezuelan electors, "This is the largest turnout I have ever seen." In previous presidential elections, turnout figures were at an average 55%.
All Venezuelans aged 18 and up whose names appear on the electoral roll were eligible to vote, including those residing abroad: polling stations were set up in Venezuelan embassies and consulates abroad.
Journalist Fausto Malavé told the Venezuelan opposition press that the recording was an evident parody that had been circulating in city streets for at least two months, claiming that it was surprising that it was only brought to public attention then. He also expressed concern at the significance that was attributed to it by the CNE.
commissioned an exit poll from the American firm of Penn, Schoen & Berland
, which showed Chávez losing by a 60-40 margin. PSB used volunteers from Súmate
, an anti-Chávez NGO which was the primary organizer of the recall referendum, and involved around 200 polling places out of 8500. With over 20,000 responses the exit poll produced a much larger amount of data than most opinion polls (typically around 1000 responses), leading to an extremely low sampling error
. However, one academic noted that "Few independent observers put much credence in the Sumate results, which were very likely skewed by overrepresentation of voters in areas where volunteers were willing to conduct their interviews."
Publication or broadcast of exit polls was banned by electoral authorities, but results of the PSB poll went out to media outlets and opposition offices several hours before polls closed. Jimmy Carter
said that Súmate "deliberately distributed this erroneous exit poll data in order to build up, not only the expectation of victory, but also to influence the people still standing in line".
According to these early-morning results, the first condition (a quorum of 25% of the electorate) had been satisfied. The second condition (more votes against Chávez than he received in 2000) would probably be satisfied. However, the third condition (a simple majority: more people voting "yes" than "no") had clearly failed.
exit poll, which was performed by volunteers from Sumate, the anti-Chavez NGO which had organized the referendum) put the "Yes" vote at 59% and the "No" vote at 40%. Their exit poll showed the opposite result to the official voting data, predicting that Chávez would lose by 20%, whereas the election results showed him to have won by 20%. A poll company representative, Schoen commented, "I think it was a massive fraud".
Coordinadora Democrática also told the press that no opposition representation was present when the votes were counted and that the physical ballots had not yet been taken into account.
On Saturday, 21 August, the international observers reported that their audit of the selected machines supported the official result: "The type of check used in this audit of the electronic system doesn't leave us much doubt regarding the result," said Gaviria.
According to one source, ten per cent of the votes were cast manually, as not all polling places could be automated. In places where voting was manual, Chávez won 70% to 30%, an even wider margin than when using the automated technology.
On the afternoon of 16 August 2004, Carter and OAS Secretary General César Gaviria
gave a joint press conference in which they endorsed the preliminary results announced by the CNE. The monitors' findings "coincided with the partial returns announced today by the National Elections Council" said Carter, while Gaviria added that the OAS electoral observation mission's members had "found no element of fraud in the process". Directing his remarks at opposition figures who made claims of "widespread fraud" in the voting, Carter called on all Venezuelans to "accept the results and work together for the future". The Carter Center
"concluded the results were accurate."
The U.S. Department of State accepted that the results of the subsequent audit were "consistent with the results announced by (Venezuela's) National Electoral Council." John Maisto
, U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States
, added that the results of the referendum "speak for themselves", saying that the quest for Venezuelan democracy "does not end with a single electoral process or referendum" and urging the "democratically elected government of Venezuela to address and recognize the legitimate concerns, rights, and aspirations of all of its citizens". Regarding the recall effort, in testimony before the U.S. Senate, Maisto also pointed out that Carter had said that " 'expression of the citizen must be privileged over excessive technicalities' in resolving issues surrounding the tabulation of the signatures".
European Union observers did not oversee the elections, saying too many restrictions were put on their participation by the Chávez administration.
of Harvard University
and Roberto Rigobón of the MIT Sloan School of Management
performed a statistical analysis at Súmate's request, analyzing how fraud could have occurred during the referendum. They concluded that the vote samples audited by the government were not a random representation of all precincts, noting that the Chávez-backed CNE
had "refused to use the random number generating program offered by the Carter Center for the 18 August audit and instead used its own program installed in its own computer and initialed with their own seed." They also noted that opposition witnesses and international observers were not allowed near the computer hub on election day. According to The Wall Street Journal
, a computer-science professor at Johns Hopkins University
said, "The Hausmann/Rigobon study is more credible than many of the other allegations being thrown around." The Carter Center looked into the allegations and released a paper with a statistical analysis in response; this stated that the audit sample data, in particular the statistical correlation
between the number of "Yes" voters and the number of petition signatories in each audited voting centre, were consistent with nationwide results, and reaffirmed the Carter Center's earlier conclusions. CEPR, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., drew on the Carter Center analysis and elaborated on the issue, criticising Hausmann and Rigobón's statistical model.
A statistical study by Maria M. Febres Cordero and Bernardo Márquez was published in 2006 in a peer-reviewed academic statistics journal. The study used cluster analysis to review differences in vote patterns between voting certificates on the basis that voters were randomly assigned to certificates (each voting center had on average 2 or 3 certificates, typically for computerised and manual voting systems). It concluded that "these findings lead us to conclude that the Venezuelan opposition has statistical evidence to reject the official results given by the CNE. The irregularities detected were observed consistently in numerous voting centers and the magnitude of the irregularities imply that the official results do not reflect the intention of voters with statistical confidence."
Foreign Policy Magazine reported that the opposition was "shocked not so much by the results as by the ease with which international observers condoned the Electoral Council's flimsy audit of the results." The sample for the audit was selected by the Chávez-controlled National Electoral Council, and according to the opposition was not of sufficient size to be statistically reliable.
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
to determine whether Hugo Chávez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...
, the current President of Venezuela, should be recalled
Recall election
A recall election is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has ended...
from office. The result of the referendum was to not recall Chávez.
The recall referendum was announced on 8 June 2004 by the National Electoral Council
National Electoral Council (Venezuela)
The National Electoral Council is one of the five independent branches of government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. It is the institution that oversees and guarantees the transparency of all elections and referendums in Venezuela at the local, regional, and national levels...
(CNE) after Venezuelan opposition succeeded in collecting the number of signatures required by the 1999 Constitution
Constitution of Venezuela
||The Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the current and twenty-sixth constitution of Venezuela. It was drafted in mid-1999 by a constitutional assembly that had been created by popular referendum. Adopted in December 1999, it replaced the 1961 Constitution - the longest...
to effect a recall.
The petition
The recall mechanism was introduced into Venezuelan law in 1999 under the new Constitution drafted by the National Constituent AssemblyConstituent assembly
A constituent assembly is a body composed for the purpose of drafting or adopting a constitution...
and sanctioned by the electorate in a referendum. Under its provisions, an elected official can be subjected to a recall referendum if a petition gathers signatures from 20% of the corresponding electorate. Thus, to order a presidential recall vote in 2004– for which the constituency was the national electorate as a whole– some 2.4 million signatures were needed.
Constitutional bases
The recall referendum is provided for in two articles of the 1999 Constitution:- Article 72: All
[...] offices filled by popular vote are subject to revocation. - Once one-half of the term of office to which an official has been elected has elapsed, a number of voters representing at least 20% of the registered voters in the affected constituency may petition for the calling of a referendum to revoke that official's mandate.
- When a number of voters equal to or greater than the number of those who elected the official vote in favour of the recall, provided that a number of voters equal to or greater than 25% of the total number of registered voters vote in the recall referendum, the official's mandate shall be deemed revoked and immediate action shall be taken to fill the permanent vacancy as provided for by this Constitution and by law.
- Article 233: The President of the Republic shall become permanently unavailable to serve by reason of any of the following events: death; resignation;
[...] recall by popular vote. [...] When the President of the Republic becomes permanently unavailable to serve during the first four years of his constitutional term of office, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 calendar days. Pending the election and inauguration of the new President, the Executive Vice President shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.- In the cases described above, the new President shall complete the current constitutional term of office. If the President becomes permanently unavailable to serve during the last two years of his constitutional term of office, the Executive Vice President shall take over the Presidency of the Republic until the term is completed.
The signature collection drive
Súmate
Súmate is a Venezuelan volunteer civil association founded in 2002 by María Corina Machado and Alejandro Plaz. Súmate describes itself as a vote-monitoring group; it has also been described as an election-monitoring group....
, a Venezuelan volunteer civil association, founded in 2002 by a group of Venezuelan citizens. These signatures were rejected by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on the grounds that they had been collected prematurely; i.e., before the mid-point of the presidential term.
In September 2003, The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
reported that the government used a "rapid reaction" squad to raid the offices of CNE (the government body overseeing the petition drive), where the petitions were stored.
In November 2003, the opposition collected a new set of signatures, with 3.6 million names produced in four days. The CNE rejected the petition, saying that only 1.9 million were valid, while 1.1 million were dubious and 460,000 completely invalid. It was claimed that some of those who signed the petition had done so under duress. The invalid signatures included people who had died many years earlier, infants, and foreigners. Of the signatures categorised as dubious, 876,017 all had the personal details written in the same handwriting except for the signature itself. Reaction to the decision to reject the petition (for the second time) resulted in riots that led to nine dead, 339 arrested, and 1,200 injured.
The petitioners appealed to the Electoral Chamber of the Venezuelan Supreme Court. The court reinstated over 800,000 of the disputed signatures, bringing the total to 2.7 million well above the 2.4 million needed to authorise the referendum. However, about a week later, the Constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court overturned the Electoral chamber's ruling alleging that the latter did not have jurisdiction for that ruling.
The list of signatories was subsequently collected by the government
The names of petition signers were posted publicly online in what became known as the Tascón List
Tascón List
The Tascón List is a list of the signatures of those who petitioned in 2003 and 2004 for the recall of the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, a petition which ultimately led to the Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004, in which the recall was defeated...
. The president of the Venezuelan Workers Confederation was quoted by the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
as claiming that the Chávez government had begun dismissing petition signers from government ministries, the state oil company, the state water company, the Caracas Metro
Caracas Metro
The Caracas Metro is a mass rapid transit system serving Caracas, Venezuela. It is constructed and operated by Compañía Anónima Metro de Caracas, a government-owned company that was founded in 1977 by José González-Lander who headed the project for more than thirty years since the early planning...
, and public hospital
Public hospital
A public hospital or government hospital is a hospital which is owned by a government and receives government funding. This type of hospital provides medical care free of charge, the cost of which is covered by the funding the hospital receives....
s and municipal governments controlled by Chávez's party. The Associated Press also quoted Venezuela's Health minister
Health minister
A health minister is the member of a country's government typically responsible for protecting and promoting public health and providing welfare and other social security services....
as justifying petition related layoffs by saying "all those who have signed to activate the recall referendum against President Chávez should be fired from the Health Ministry". He retracted these remarks several days later by saying that they were his own personal opinions and not a matter of public policy.
As a compromise, the CNE set aside five days in May 2004 to allow the owners of disputed signatures to confirm that they did, in fact, back the referendum call: this was known as the reparo process. At the end of that verification effort, the total number of signatures stood at 2,436,830, according to the CNE. Thus, the target had been reached and the referendum could take place. During that time, thousands of forged ID cards and equipment to create forged ID cards were confiscated by the police. Supporters of Chávez believed that the opposition used these to forge signatures. The opposition claimed that the equipment and the ID cards were planted.
The CNE later admitted that 15,863 signatures of those signatures that were verified in May 2004 belonged to people who had died in 2003.
Timing
The date chosen for the recall referendum was significant: had the recall vote been held on 19 August or later, Chávez would have been into the fifth year of his six-year term and had he been voted out, Vice President José Vicente RangelJosé Vicente Rangel
José Vicente Rangel Vale is a Venezuelan leftist politician. He ran for President three times in the 1970s and 1980s and later supported Hugo Chávez, successively becoming Foreign Minister, Defense Minister, and Vice President in Chávez's government.-Political activism:His political activism began...
would have taken over and served out the rest of Chávez's presidency (in accordance with Article 233 of the Constitution, above). With the vote called for 15 August, Chávez was not yet into the last two years of his term in office; an unfavourable result would therefore have meant the calling of fresh presidential elections within the following 30 days. Chávez had expressed his clear intention to stand in the election, had he been recalled; the anti-Chávez factions, however, maintained that he would have been disqualified from doing so.
Campaign
Between late May 2004, when the CNE set the referendum date, and 15 August, the date chosen, a contentious campaign took place, with both sides convinced of victory. Late on, however, with some signs that the referendum would fail, the opposition appeared to become increasingly desperate. On 25 July 2004, from his exile in Miami, disgraced former President Carlos Andrés PérezCarlos Andrés Pérez
Carlos Andrés Pérez Rodríguez , also known as CAP and often referred to as El Gocho , was a Venezuelan politician, President of Venezuela from 1974 to 1979 and again from 1989 to 1993. His first presidency was known as the Saudi Venezuela due to its economic and social prosperity thanks to...
declared "I am working to overthrow Chávez. Violence will allow us to take him out. Chávez must die like a dog." to the Venezuelan daily "El Nacional
El Nacional
El Nacional is a Venezuelan publishing company under the name C.A. Editorial El Nacional, most widely known for its El Nacional newspaper. It, along with Últimas Noticias and El Universal, are the most widely read and circulated daily national newspapers in the country, and it has an average of...
". There were echoes of the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt in Pérez's claims that all Chavista institutions (such as the Supreme Court and National Assembly) would need to be dismantled under a junta governing for a "transition period" of 2 or 3 years.
Claims of foreign interference
SúmateSúmate
Súmate is a Venezuelan volunteer civil association founded in 2002 by María Corina Machado and Alejandro Plaz. Súmate describes itself as a vote-monitoring group; it has also been described as an election-monitoring group....
(the civial association organizing the recall effort) received a US$ $31,000 grant in September 2003 from the United States National Endowment for Democracy
National Endowment for Democracy
The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...
, an organisation funded by the United States government. The grant, earmarked for "election education", was used to promote voter education about the constitutional recall process. The Chávez government is prosecuting four Súmate officials for high treason and conspiracy, for accepting funds from the U.S. Congress.
Chávez supporters see the Súmate NED grant as an example of the U.S. intent to overthrow him. Senior U.S. administration officials met with Venezuelan opposition leaders in the months and weeks before the attempted coup of 11 April 2002, although the administration has insisted that they did not support the overthrow of Chávez' government.
Polls
Although support for Chávez had been low in 2003 and early 2004, as the campaign got under way, polling data showed some changes. Most polls, including those by firms linked to the opposition which had showed low support for Chávez in 2003 and early 2004, predicted a rejection of the recall in the weeks before the referendum.Numerous pre-referendum polls, both by opposition and by pro-Chávez groups, during the previous months and weeks predicted the No vote to win by a margin of between 5% and 31%. For example, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc. and DATOS
Datos
Datos was an ancient Greek city located in Thrace , located in the region between the river Strymon and the river Nestos.It was founded by colonists from Thasos at 360 BC.Datos was founded with the help and support of the Athenian exiled orator, Kallistratos.Datos was close to Mount Pangaion with...
, both commissioned by the opposition, found margins in favour of No by 5% and 12% respectively in June 2004; Datanálisis found a margin of 14% in favour of Chávez in June. On 11 August, Robert Jensen
Robert Jensen
Robert William Jensen is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin College of Communication. He joined the faculty in 1992 after completing his Ph.D. in media law and ethics in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota...
wrote that recent polls ranged from 8% to 31% for margins in favour of the No vote.
The ballot
The following question was put to the Venezuelan electorate:- ¿Está usted de acuerdo con dejar sin efecto el mandato popular otorgado mediante elecciones democráticas legítimas al ciudadano Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías como presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela para el actual período presidencial? ¿NO o SÍ?
Translated into English:
- Do you agree to revoke, for the current term, the popular mandate as President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela conferred on citizen Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías through democratic and legitimate elections? NO or YES?
For the recall to be successful, there were three conditions:
- A turnout of at least 25% of the country's 14.25 million registered voters.
- More anti-Chávez votes than the number who voted for him in the 2000 presidential election (3.76 million).
- More "yes" votes cast than "no" votes.
The day of the referendum
Polling stations opened at 6 am Venezuelan time on 15 August 2004. Later in the day, faced with a 70% turnout, lengthy queues of waiting voters, and delays exacerbated by the use of novel electronic voting equipment and fingerprint scanners, the electoral authorities agreed to extend the close of voting twice: a four-hour extension of the deadline that took it to 8 p.m., followed by an additional four hours announced later in the evening, which took it to midnight.A record number of voters turned out to defeat the recall attempt with a 59% "no" vote. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
, who was in Venezuela to observe the electoral process, said of the patiently waiting Venezuelan electors, "This is the largest turnout I have ever seen." In previous presidential elections, turnout figures were at an average 55%.
All Venezuelans aged 18 and up whose names appear on the electoral roll were eligible to vote, including those residing abroad: polling stations were set up in Venezuelan embassies and consulates abroad.
Fake recording
At 15h50 local time on 15 August, CNE rector Jorge Rodríguez and CNE president Francisco Carrasquero announced on national television that they had found an audio CD where a faked voice of Carrasquero declared that the anti-Chávez opposition has won the referendum with a total of 11,436,086 "yes" votes, and that Chávez's mandate was thereby revoked. Since this was several hours before the closing of the polling booths, and since Carrasquero declared the recording to be fake, this appeared to be a case of attempted sabotage of the referendum. The attorney-general was called on to conduct a full inquiry into the incident and to locate and arrest those responsible for the spurious audio recording.Journalist Fausto Malavé told the Venezuelan opposition press that the recording was an evident parody that had been circulating in city streets for at least two months, claiming that it was surprising that it was only brought to public attention then. He also expressed concern at the significance that was attributed to it by the CNE.
Exit poll
Coordinadora DemocráticaCoordinadora Democrática (Venezuela)
The Coordinadora Democrática was an umbrella group of Venezuelan political parties and organisations opposed to President Hugo Chavez. Founded on 5 July 2002, it was involved in organising the Venezuelan general strike of 2002-2003 and the Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004...
commissioned an exit poll from the American firm of Penn, Schoen & Berland
Penn, Schoen & Berland
Penn, Schoen Berland is a market research, political polling and strategic consulting firm with American offices in New York, Washington, Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin, and San Francisco, and international offices in London, Hong Kong, Beijing, Dubai, and Delhi. The firm was founded in 1975...
, which showed Chávez losing by a 60-40 margin. PSB used volunteers from Súmate
Súmate
Súmate is a Venezuelan volunteer civil association founded in 2002 by María Corina Machado and Alejandro Plaz. Súmate describes itself as a vote-monitoring group; it has also been described as an election-monitoring group....
, an anti-Chávez NGO which was the primary organizer of the recall referendum, and involved around 200 polling places out of 8500. With over 20,000 responses the exit poll produced a much larger amount of data than most opinion polls (typically around 1000 responses), leading to an extremely low sampling error
Sampling error
-Random sampling:In statistics, sampling error or estimation error is the error caused by observing a sample instead of the whole population. The sampling error can be found by subtracting the value of a parameter from the value of a statistic...
. However, one academic noted that "Few independent observers put much credence in the Sumate results, which were very likely skewed by overrepresentation of voters in areas where volunteers were willing to conduct their interviews."
Publication or broadcast of exit polls was banned by electoral authorities, but results of the PSB poll went out to media outlets and opposition offices several hours before polls closed. Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
said that Súmate "deliberately distributed this erroneous exit poll data in order to build up, not only the expectation of victory, but also to influence the people still standing in line".
Results
The preliminary result was announced on 16 August 2004 on national television and radio after 94% of the vote had been counted.- No: 4,991,483 = 58%
- Yes: 3,576,517 = 42%
According to these early-morning results, the first condition (a quorum of 25% of the electorate) had been satisfied. The second condition (more votes against Chávez than he received in 2000) would probably be satisfied. However, the third condition (a simple majority: more people voting "yes" than "no") had clearly failed.
Fraud claims
After the first preliminary result was broadcast, the opposition Coordinadora Democrática declared that a fraud had taken place, stating that its own data (the Penn, Schoen & BerlandPenn, Schoen & Berland
Penn, Schoen Berland is a market research, political polling and strategic consulting firm with American offices in New York, Washington, Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin, and San Francisco, and international offices in London, Hong Kong, Beijing, Dubai, and Delhi. The firm was founded in 1975...
exit poll, which was performed by volunteers from Sumate, the anti-Chavez NGO which had organized the referendum) put the "Yes" vote at 59% and the "No" vote at 40%. Their exit poll showed the opposite result to the official voting data, predicting that Chávez would lose by 20%, whereas the election results showed him to have won by 20%. A poll company representative, Schoen commented, "I think it was a massive fraud".
Coordinadora Democrática also told the press that no opposition representation was present when the votes were counted and that the physical ballots had not yet been taken into account.
Partial audit of the results
While stressing they had found no indications of fraud, the OAS and Carter Center monitors announced on Wednesday, 18 August, that they would conduct a review of the results at 150 randomly selected sites, to ensure that voting machines were properly functioning. This review, conducted by monitors in conjunction with the CNE, would compare the audit trail recorded by the electronic voting equipment with the individually printed ballot papers.On Saturday, 21 August, the international observers reported that their audit of the selected machines supported the official result: "The type of check used in this audit of the electronic system doesn't leave us much doubt regarding the result," said Gaviria.
According to one source, ten per cent of the votes were cast manually, as not all polling places could be automated. In places where voting was manual, Chávez won 70% to 30%, an even wider margin than when using the automated technology.
Process endorsements
The day before the polling, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter expressed confidence that the vote would proceed in a calm and orderly fashion. Carter commented that, "I might project results that will be much more satisfactory than they were in 2000 in Florida".On the afternoon of 16 August 2004, Carter and OAS Secretary General César Gaviria
César Gaviria
César Gaviria Trujillo is a Colombian politician and a Latin American statesman. He served as President of Colombia from 1990 to 1994, and Secretary General of the Organization of American States from 1994 until 2004.-Early life:...
gave a joint press conference in which they endorsed the preliminary results announced by the CNE. The monitors' findings "coincided with the partial returns announced today by the National Elections Council" said Carter, while Gaviria added that the OAS electoral observation mission's members had "found no element of fraud in the process". Directing his remarks at opposition figures who made claims of "widespread fraud" in the voting, Carter called on all Venezuelans to "accept the results and work together for the future". The Carter Center
Carter Center
The Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center works to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering...
"concluded the results were accurate."
The U.S. Department of State accepted that the results of the subsequent audit were "consistent with the results announced by (Venezuela's) National Electoral Council." John Maisto
John Maisto
John Francis Maisto is a U.S. former foreign service officer and former ambassador. he was the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States , the U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela 1997–2000 and the Ambassador to Nicaragua 1993–1996.Maisto attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign...
, U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States
Organization of American States
The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...
, added that the results of the referendum "speak for themselves", saying that the quest for Venezuelan democracy "does not end with a single electoral process or referendum" and urging the "democratically elected government of Venezuela to address and recognize the legitimate concerns, rights, and aspirations of all of its citizens". Regarding the recall effort, in testimony before the U.S. Senate, Maisto also pointed out that Carter had said that " 'expression of the citizen must be privileged over excessive technicalities' in resolving issues surrounding the tabulation of the signatures".
European Union observers did not oversee the elections, saying too many restrictions were put on their participation by the Chávez administration.
Analyses
Economists Ricardo HausmannRicardo Hausmann
Ricardo Hausmann is a former Venezuelan Minister of Planning and Head of the "Presidential Office of Coordination and Planning" and current Director of Harvard's Center for International Development and a Professor of the Practice of Economic Development at John F...
of Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and Roberto Rigobón of the MIT Sloan School of Management
MIT Sloan School of Management
The MIT Sloan School of Management is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts....
performed a statistical analysis at Súmate's request, analyzing how fraud could have occurred during the referendum. They concluded that the vote samples audited by the government were not a random representation of all precincts, noting that the Chávez-backed CNE
National Electoral Council (Venezuela)
The National Electoral Council is one of the five independent branches of government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. It is the institution that oversees and guarantees the transparency of all elections and referendums in Venezuela at the local, regional, and national levels...
had "refused to use the random number generating program offered by the Carter Center for the 18 August audit and instead used its own program installed in its own computer and initialed with their own seed." They also noted that opposition witnesses and international observers were not allowed near the computer hub on election day. According to The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, a computer-science professor at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
said, "The Hausmann/Rigobon study is more credible than many of the other allegations being thrown around." The Carter Center looked into the allegations and released a paper with a statistical analysis in response; this stated that the audit sample data, in particular the statistical correlation
Correlation
In statistics, dependence refers to any statistical relationship between two random variables or two sets of data. Correlation refers to any of a broad class of statistical relationships involving dependence....
between the number of "Yes" voters and the number of petition signatories in each audited voting centre, were consistent with nationwide results, and reaffirmed the Carter Center's earlier conclusions. CEPR, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., drew on the Carter Center analysis and elaborated on the issue, criticising Hausmann and Rigobón's statistical model.
A statistical study by Maria M. Febres Cordero and Bernardo Márquez was published in 2006 in a peer-reviewed academic statistics journal. The study used cluster analysis to review differences in vote patterns between voting certificates on the basis that voters were randomly assigned to certificates (each voting center had on average 2 or 3 certificates, typically for computerised and manual voting systems). It concluded that "these findings lead us to conclude that the Venezuelan opposition has statistical evidence to reject the official results given by the CNE. The irregularities detected were observed consistently in numerous voting centers and the magnitude of the irregularities imply that the official results do not reflect the intention of voters with statistical confidence."
Foreign Policy Magazine reported that the opposition was "shocked not so much by the results as by the ease with which international observers condoned the Electoral Council's flimsy audit of the results." The sample for the audit was selected by the Chávez-controlled National Electoral Council, and according to the opposition was not of sufficient size to be statistically reliable.
External links
- Recall Referendum Q&A (BBC)
- Head-to-head: Should Chávez leave power? (BBC)
- indymedia global newswire claims of electoral fraud by CNE
- referendum result announced on national radio and television
- Venezuela Analitica
- CNE's Official Results for Recall Referendum (National Electoral Council (Venezuela)National Electoral Council (Venezuela)The National Electoral Council is one of the five independent branches of government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. It is the institution that oversees and guarantees the transparency of all elections and referendums in Venezuela at the local, regional, and national levels...
) - Carter Center's Executive Summary of Comprehensive Report: 2004 Venezuela Elections (Carter CenterCarter CenterThe Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center works to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering...
) - Carter Center's Audit of the Results of the Presidential Recall Referendum in Venezuela (Carter CenterCarter CenterThe Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center works to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering...
) - Carter Center's Report on an Analysis of the Representativeness of the Second Audit Sample, and the Correlation between Petition Signers and the Yes Vote in the August 15, 2004, Presidential Recall Referendum (Carter CenterCarter CenterThe Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center works to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering...
) - Exit polls in Venezuela an analysis by Michael Barone of U.S. News and World Report.