Venezuela Electoral Council confirms Maduro victory

PanARMENIAN.Net - Venezuela’s Electoral Council has completed an audit of results from April’s bitterly contested presidential election, and as expected it confirmed Nicolas Maduro’s 1.5 percentage-point victory.

According to The Associated Press, no government official appeared publicly to comment on the outcome, but an official at the council confirmed on Sunday, June 9 a report by the state-run AVN news agency that the audit supported the official vote count.

The opposition has complained that the council ignored its demand for a full recount. That would have included not just comparing votes electronically registered by machines with the paper ballot receipts they emitted, but also comparing those with the bound paper registries that contain voter signatures and fingerprints.

Backers of opposition candidate Henrique Capriles claim rampant irregularities included the intimidation of voters and manipulating the outcome through votes cast in the names of dead people still on voting rolls.

Capriles has called the audit a farce.

He has challenged the April 13 election results at the Supreme Court, which like the National Electoral Council is dominated by the political heirs of President Hugo Chavez, who died of cancer in March after anointing Maduro as his successor.