Carter Center Confirms Edmundo González as Winner of Venezuelan Election

The Carter Center confirmed on Wednesday that opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia emerged victorious in the Venezuelan elections, with the regime of Nicolás Maduro failing to provide any evidence of the alleged cyberattack on the electoral system. "There is no evidence" that Venezuela's electoral system was targeted during the July 28 elections, said Jennie Lincoln, head of the Carter Center's observation mission, in an interview with the AFP. The Carter Center validated the opposition's claims of victory and called for the respect of Venezuelan voters' will.

Invited by the National Electoral Council (CNE) to observe the contentious elections that Maduro claimed to have won amid widespread and alarming allegations of fraud, the Carter Center ultimately certified that the elections were neither fair nor transparent. Forty-eight hours after the voting concluded, the Center questioned the legitimacy of the presidential elections and stated that the elections did not meet international standards of electoral integrity, thus preventing them from being considered democratic.

"The Carter Center cannot verify or corroborate the authenticity of the presidential election results declared by the CNE of Venezuela. The fact that the electoral authority has not announced results broken down by polling station constitutes a severe violation of electoral principles," the institution stated in an official communiqué published on July 30.

In an interview with AFP on Wednesday, Lincoln explained that "companies monitor and know when there are denial-of-service attacks (hacks), and there was none that night." "The transmission of voting data is done via telephone lines and satellite phones, not computers. No data has been lost," insisted the head of the Carter Center's observation mission.

Despite the overwhelming evidence pointing in this direction, the CNE continues to withhold detailed results and proof to the contrary, claiming that delays are due to an alleged hack. Meanwhile, Maduro continues to denounce a "cyber-fascist coup" by the opposition. Lincoln reminded that the CNE president, Elvis Amoroso, "promised to publish polling station results on the website and deliver a CD to political parties," which he announced in an initial bulletin. "It's a promise he never fulfilled," noted the regional advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean.

"Despite the uneven playing field, the Venezuelan people went out to vote," Lincoln continued, referring to the elections. "The major irregularity of the election day was the lack of transparency from the CNE and the blatant disregard for its own rules regarding presenting the true vote of the people."

The Carter Center, Lincoln explained, has "analyzed the available numbers" alongside other organizations and universities and "confirms Edmundo González Urrutia as the winner with over 60%" of the votes. The opposition published copies of more than 80% of the tally sheets on a website, asserting that they prove González Urrutia - representative of leader María Corina Machado - won with 67% of the votes. The CNE gave him 43% compared to Maduro's 52%.

"It's pure theater," Lincoln observed. "The government has had 11, 12 days... ample time to show the real data of the tally sheets they received on election night," she insisted.

Finally, the head of the Carter Center's observation mission expressed skepticism regarding the developments in Venezuela and the demands by several countries for an "impartial verification of the results." "I am skeptical about what an international verification team could do that the witnesses haven't done, who have produced the actual tally sheets from that night," she noted, while considering it premature to comment on the Carter Center's willingness to participate in an audit of this level.