Chavez Steals the Vote. Not. (UPDATED)

Filed under: Foreign Policy, South America — Jason, Managing Editor on December 3, 2007 @ 3:46 am CET

Those looking for election fraud might finally have the real thing.Gateway Pundit has been tracking the developments in the referendum in Venezuela. The question is essentially whether Chavez will be granted president-for-life rank with dictatorial powers. For the last several weeks, “no” supporters have been holding a significant lead in spite of Chavez’ remarkably blatant threats and intimidation. Yet, as predicted, Chavez has apparently executed his backup plan to ensure the “correct” result.

Unfortunately, what can be expected in Venezuela is predictable because we have seen it before. Dissenters will be targeted for intimidation, any critical media outlets will be shut down. Chavez will inveigh with new broadsides against America, attempting to distract the attention of his people from repression at home by claiming it is necessitated by shadowy foreign plots against “his” country.

More interesting and potentially unpredictable will be international reaction, especially in the United States. For many months, Chavez’ supporters have acted as a classic spin machine, explaining away each new outrage as unimportant, temporary, or necessitated by the evils of the Bush administration. More recently, however, some elements of this propagandist sympathy movement have begun to distance themselves from Chavez, casting their endorsements in attenuated terms or damning by faint praise. Some have even issued what is, for them, the ultimate condemnation, comparing Chavez to the Bush administration itself, though still asserting Bush as more evil (in spite of Bush’s distinctly odd lack of follow-through on his alleged program of repressing all dissenters, especially when compared to the free hand of Chavez’ thugs in doing so). Will this theft of an election granting Chavez absolute power be enough to finally kick Bush into second place in the hierarchy of the far left’s Legion of Doom?

Prediction: No.

UPDATE: The plan may be backfiring. The Venezuelan vote-counters are refusing to confirm a pro-Chavez result and “no” voters may have a majority.

UPDATE 2: The “no” voters may have won out in the end. This means that the more interesting moves may come in Venezuela. After all, Chavez declared last week that anyone who voted “no” was a “traitor”. With millions of traitors now revealed, how will Chavez respond? How will his defenders in the West?

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1 Jim Et Al

December 3, 2007 @ 4:50 am CET

LOL…impatiently waiting for update numero tres…

Congrats on the new format…

2 Jim Et Al

December 3, 2007 @ 5:12 am CET

Well founded sources have the vote totaling around 56% NO to 44% SI. I’m fairly certain that not even Karl Rove could have stolen this election..

3 Jim Et Al

December 3, 2007 @ 6:16 am CET

Although

10 November 2007: Electronic voting manufacturer Sequoia Voting Systems was sold to private investors this week — one full year ahead of the 2008 presidential election. Sequoia Voting, which supplies technology to jurisdictions across 17 states and supplied the problematic punch card paper voting cards to Florida in the 2000 presidential election, reported the private sales deal was lead by its current executive team.

Jack Blaine, Sequoia Voting president and CEO, said, “I am very excited and hopeful about the tremendous possibilities and numerous opportunities that lay ahead for Sequoia given the company’s new structure and the completion of this sale process.”

The investors, led by Blaine and company CFO Peter McManemy, purchased Sequoia Voting from Smartmatic Corporation for an undisclosed sum.

Smartmatic announced its intention to sell in December 2006 following reports the company had ties to Venezuela’s government and was facing an investigation by CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.)

So the same company that sold Florida those infamous substandard punch cards probably resulting in the Presidential election going to Bush also sold Venezuela its state-of-the-art voting system?

Someone please tell me that the Bolivarian Revolution isn’t hanging by a digital chad…