Carter Center accepts very limited role as Venezuelan presidential election monitor (Translation)

This is both a setup and an outrage.

There are two main issues which confront any group of observers who will journey to Venezuela for its December 3rd presidential election; the past record of voter fraud and electoral manipulation by the Chavez regime and the open intimidation of Venezuelan voters by Chavez and his campaign over the past few weeks. The Carter Center is accepting a role in which it will get to exercise only a very small responsibility in the first instance and none whatsoever in the second. They will be permitted to comment only upon the automated voting process and even then, go up and read the words of the Carter Center spokesman, "neither will they evaluate [it] in an exhaustive and integral form."

What??????????

Representatives of the Carter Center apparently are going to show up at the various centers of the National Electoral Council around Venezuela as voting reports from individual polling places are handed in, watch as they are entered, and then look to see if they are tabulated correctly. They may get an opportunity to view the way the machines are being used by voters at individual polling places, but at most they will only get to watch, and even that right of visiting individual precincts appears to be limited at the very least given that it is not spelled out. In the world of election observers, the right of access to polling places is something that must be made clear, and there is nothing of that in this news release. Since they will not get to conduct "an exhaustive and integral" examination of the very automated process they have come to monitor, we can probably conclude that they will not get an opportunity to verify the setup and handling of the individual voting machines around the country, which produce the tabulated votes which become part of the voting reports. Why should this be off-limits if they are monitoring automated voting? From their own perspective, the representatives of the Carter Center probably see themselves as merely excercising a limited role in monitoring the system of automated voting, which they probably see as a "useful service." But from the viewpoint of Hugo Chavez and his regime, their impact and significance is much greater, because the Carter Center's endorsement of Hugo Chavez's legitimacy has been of great propaganda value to the Venezuelan leader.

There is quite a bit of information out on the record of the Chavez regime in vote fraud and electoral manipulation. Salon.com's Primer on Venezuelan Electoral Fraud can be a good place to start, it primarily focuses upon the 2004 referendum on Chavez but has more. VCrisis.com's examination of the Venezuelan electoral rolls gives a particular insight into one of Chavez's main devices of electoral manipulation -- note that the Carter Center will have no role to play in examining voter rolls -- and be sure to read VCrisis.com's reposting of the Wall Street Journal experts who found evidence of fraud in that 2004 referendum vote. I note the following paragraph from that article on the response of the Chavez government to the story:

". . . Mr. Chavez's government reacted with disbelief to the claims, saying the opposition's previous claims of fraud had so far proved incorrect. Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said members of the Atlanta-based Carter Center and the Organization of American States had already validated the result. 'No one believes in their theories anymore because three weeks have gone by and they haven't been able to prove anything,' Mr. Rangel said. . . ."

Do you see it? Hugo Chavez needs Jimmy Carter's endorsement. It silences all critics of his legitimacy. And under the terms of the agreement described above, they will get to look only where Hugo Chavez lets them look.

Voter intimidation is also a major factor in the current presidential campaign. Chavez and his government are threatening employees of the Venezuelan state and state-owned enterprises, such as the national oil monopoly. You can read the intimidation in their own words in this translated article (it's post #16) and see for yourself. The issue of voter intimidation takes other forms as well. One of the most prominent is the use of the captahuellas, the fingerprint ID-verifying machines which timestamp the casting of votes by individual voters, thus raising the possibility of a non-secret ballot since votes are also timestamped when they are cast and the two lists can simply be correlated to determine the exact vote cast by each individual. This is not part of "automated voting" so the Carter Center will not be observing its use. But take a look at the following translated paragraph of a statement by Manuel Rosales, Chavez's opponent, as published in El Universal (Caracas) today:

". . . [Thus] affirmed the opponent of the government candidate, Hugo Chavez, that on that day 'the people are going to go out to vote' in spite of 'the figures who are scheming to intimidate the people.' He referred concretely to the captahuella machines, of which the challenger has repeatedly pointed out that 'they serve no one.' He considered that 'with threats or without threats' the electorate will go out and deposit its vote in the ballot boxes. . . ."

If this is the issue of ballot security involved with the Venezuelan presidential election as the Venezuelans themselves describe it, which comes right down to the possible negation of the secret ballot, how can the Carter Center ignore its importance?

Finally; I want to cite one more among many other references I could have presented on Chavez's use of vote fraud, which I choose because it presents specific first-hand anectdotes from on-site observers sent to two Democrats in Congress, Senator Bill Nelson and Congressman Robert Wexler. When you consider the source, remember that Democrats generally have not been too quick to criticize Chavez. The report of American observers Curtis Reed and Steve Henley (Henley was a Hillsborough County Democratic Party activist) contains a long list of precinct-level anectdotes and more which present a very disturbing look at the process in Venezuela in August, 2004. I'm going to paste in one part of their conclusions:

". . . After personally witnessing the process, our organization has decided to divide the analysis into two separate areas and provide separate conclusions on each. Electoral Processes and Procedures: We are able to confidently state, without fear of unfair bias, following close study of the CNE's voting norms and the Venezuelan Bolivarian Constitution, that the Venezuelan government, military services (Plan República) and its closely allied civil organizations (Comando Maisanta and Circulos Bolivarianos), did regularly and knowingly violate the Constitutional Protections, Electoral Norms, and Human Rights of the Venezuelan opposition electorate in a manner that is consistent with an attempt to change the election results. . . ."

In light of all of this and so much more, I think we have every right to demand that the Carter Center act to fulfill its mission to "promote democracy" abroad, and either insist upon securing a meaningful role in the Venezuelan presidential election monitoring process, or simply withdraw and stay out of it. Right now, they appear to be playing a pro-Chavez role which undermines all notion of credibility on their part.

Note: I strongly recommend VCrisis.com as a source for news on the Venezuelan election campaign and it will also be worth your while to visit PubliusPundit.com for their occasional updates as well.

A Latin American Left Watch ping for you all.

Anyone wishing to be included on the ping list may either ping me from this thread or contact me via Freepmail.

You think Carter knows he's an absolute tool?

Here I fixed it

Carter Center will limit itself solely to observing system of automated voting fraud

The taxpayer financed Cahtah Centah was set up with a single goal in mind, to win the Nobel Peace Prize for its namesake, the lemonsucker, ex-president Peanuthead.
This man could not have done more damage to the United States if he had been a paid agent of the Soviet Union...

Carter recently "monitored" the resurrection of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua (of Sandinista fame):

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6439233

Jimmuh Carter (aka Peanut Boy): Every dictator's Toilet Brush

You think Carter knows he's an absolute tool?

The great news is Jimmah's (The Socialist Jackboot Polisher) days are numbered.

America's best days are ahead.

Carter will limit himself to simply congratulating Chavez for his fairly won victory.

Why are we allowing Carter to sh*t on these people again??

"Why are we allowing Carter to sh*t on these people again??"

I take it you feel my sense of outrage.

What is particularly important to me is that these are the actions of an ex-President of the United States of America; now used in the suppression of an entire nation who, rightfully under the American historical tradition, should feel they could turn to him -- and from their perspective "us" through him -- for help.

I'm really outraged.

"You think Carter knows he's an absolute tool?"

Jhimmih the Dhimmi did win the February 2006 Dhimwhit of the Month award...

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Dhimwits.htm

I'm surprised all the crazy stuff doesn't give you a headache translating it StJ.

Thanks again for great reporting.

"I'm surprised all the crazy stuff doesn't give you a headache translating it StJ."

Who says I don't get a headache translating?

LOL! I will admit sometimes I run across something, and this was especially true of some of the articles I translated from the Mexico City newspaper La Crónica de Hoy back during the height of the post-election controversy in Mexico, that is particularly troublesome because of bad writing. Mexicans have this habit of creating their own vocabulary out of thin air, and that can be bothersome. I've only had a couple of glitches with some of the idiomatic expressions used in the South American articles, as I am much more familiar with South American (Colombian) Spanish.

The truth is that I had a little bit of a slow start to all of this, by which I refer to the amount of time it took to translate, but that my speed at producing translations has really picked up. It's not as hard as it seems, or perhaps I should say not as hard as it used to be.

Seems there has been a rebirth of nerve regarding communists in many areas of the Latin American world.

NOT GOOD.

Thanks for the translations, great job.

Thank goodness our saintly ex-President Carter will be there to make sure that Hugo Chavez, aka "Man of the People," gets a fair shake in the upcoming "election!"

The above adjective, "saintly," represents an absolute triumph of Public Relations over reality. Jimmy Carter is mean, vindictive, outrageously partisan little man. To cross him when he was Governor of Georgia (a whole 'nother story) meant you would be hounded until the last day of your possibly very much shortened life. The only thing this Bible-Beating Baptist Bunko Artist has ever been able to manage is a vendetta.

He presided over a very corrupt state government, from which anything was available for a price. Venezuelans suffer to this day from his endorsement of Chavez, and in this country we suffer from a succession of Jimmy Carter Jerk Judges, which are his true legacy. The Iranians and the world suffer from his abandonment of the Shah, a true ally, in exchange for championing the cause of the Ayatollah Khomeini, an enemy of mankind.

The only "good" thing this creep ever did was manage to so outrage the Democrat voters that they rose up, voted for Reagan, and threw his shabby carcass from office. Short of a miracle, that may not happen to his protegé, Chavez.

Behind the "saintly," folksy image is a bitter hateful man who has sworn to get even with the people who removed him from office.

Yeah, but what do you really think of Jimmy Carter Kenny Bunk? C'mon, you can tell us. We're friends.

LOL!

I do not hold it out as an impossibility that Chavez will lose the election. I don't think it is likely, because I do expect a very well-coordinated electoral fraud operation on his part, but it is possible. I genuinely do believe that if the election were truly fair Rosales would win.