MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

More voters than people in Venezuelan Electoral Roll

Venezuela has more above 45 registered voters in the Electoral Roll than population, claims one of Caracas leading newspapers, El Nacional.

According to an academic paper from the Central University of Venezuela the Standing Electoral Roll, REP, has 5.884.053 registered voters above the age of 45, while the number of "living persons" in the latest census from the country's Statistics Institute adds up to 5.576.135 people.

The team of University computer and statistics experts is headed by Professor Genaro Mosquera who pointed out that there's an "evident inconsistency" in the numbers which "puts in doubt the reliability of REP".

"The extraordinary growth of registered voters in the last three years is not explainable under statistical parameters or consistent with demographic standards, which makes it necessary to review the REP", added Mr. Mosquera.

The Venezuelan electoral roll increased by almost three million people in the last three years, from 12 to 15 million voters before the recall referendum against President Hugo Chavez in August 2004, "a performance which does not conform" to the historic behaviour of the electoral roll or population growth, according to the team of experts.

Mr. Mosquera said the "REP auditing currently undertaken by experimental universities (all government managed) will not help to clear the situation".

An independent auditing with a demographic analysis of the REP was proposed by the Central, Simon Bolivar and Andres Bello (private) universities. However the Venezuelan Electoral Council rejected the proposal and opted for the seven experimental universities which according to the opposition "openly support the Socialist path undertaken by President Hugo Chavez".

Another Caracas newspaper, EL Universal, claims that a public opinion poll from the North American Opinion Research (considered by the opposition aligned with Chavez) shows that 57% of those surveyed support making the Electoral Roll public "including all information on voters".

Venezuelan opposition has threatened not to participate in the coming December 3 presidential election if the Electoral Council refuses to purge the REP with an independent audit and allows manual counting of ballots on Election Day, among other conditions.

A survey done between May 19 and 29 in Venezuela's 18 main cities showed that 53% believe that the members of the Electoral Council are "chavistas" and 12% that they are "moderately" opponents of President Chavez.

Another survey by Datanalisis shows that a majority of the population belonging to the D and E low income brackets trust the Electoral Council, while the main mistrust is concentrated in the A, B and C medium and high income brackets, reports El Universal.