MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Electoral council extends auditing to all Sunday votes; Capriles accepts
Ms Lucena making the announcement during a press conference Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, CNE said on Thursday it would audit votes cast in weekend presidential elections after an opposition challenge to the victory accorded to President-elect Nicolas Maduro.
Council president Tibisay Lucena said the expanded audit would encompass all the ballot boxes not reviewed on Election Day, with about two-thirds of them selected as a random sample.
“Under no circumstance should this be interpreted as a vote count of any kind,” she said.
Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles immediately went on television and said his campaign accepted the decision of the election council, thereby defusing for now a standoff with Maduro, who is to be inaugurated as president Friday.
“Following a long discussion to analyze the request, we have agreed to expand the phase two of the audit, which has begun today for the auditing of the remaining 46% of the ballot boxes that were not audited on Election Day” said CNE president Tibisay Lucena.
She emphasized that the Electoral council is “entirely transparent and the (election) result reflects the meticulous task. The electoral system has been for a long time submitted to audits and the proofs that render guarantees to its robustness” added Ms Lucena who warned the process ‘would take weeks’.
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Read all commentsHow do you say “back flip” in Spanish?
Apr 19th, 2013 - 07:03 am 0Anglotino
Apr 19th, 2013 - 07:18 am 0“In no way a recount.” Huh????
I think Capriles blew it - Maduro just wants to keep a lid on things until he is safely through the inauguration.
Interesting that Maduro seems fearful of a true backlash.
Sounds like his “talking bird/spirit of Chavez” trick only fools a few of the people.
:-)
“In no way a recount.” - means they will not do anything even if the election is found to be a total fraud.
Apr 19th, 2013 - 08:46 am 0Its only purpose is to calm the waters by offering a meaningless concession
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