Free Republic

Venezuela’s opposition candidate trounced President Nicolás Maduro in last week’s election, according to election tallies that show the opposition’s Edmundo González received more than double the votes of Maduro. A Washington Post review, published Sunday, analyzed more than 23,000 precinct-level tally sheets collected by the opposition. It found Maduro received about 30 percent of the vote (3,131,103 votes) compared to 67 percent for González (6,901,845 votes), further fueling doubts over Maduro’s declared victory in the race. The tally sheets analyzed by the Post represented 79 percent of the voting tables from the July 28 election. The outlet noted that even...

Six years after declaring the Venezuelan election process "flawed," former President Jimmy Carter's Carter Center will monitor only one aspect of the country's Dec. 3 elections, despite claims of abuses during the campaign designed to favor the incumbent, left-wing populist President Hugo Chavez. The center announced Nov. 20 that it would organize a "specialized, limited technical mission" to "observe the use of the automated voting technology." The effort is in collaboration with Carter's group and the Venezuelan National Electoral Council, a body which Chavez critics say is controlled by the president. The group will also not monitor the election broadly...