There is turmoil in Venezuela following the announcement by a government-controlled electoral authority of a disputed election result that handed a third consecutive term in power to President Nicolás Maduro. The opposition says the result is fraudulent and that its candidate, Edmundo González, won the election by a wide margin.
The National Electoral Council (CNE), which announced the contested result, has so far failed to provide the voting tallies from individual polling stations that the opposition says demonstrate Mr González is the winner. With pressure on the CNE growing to release the tallies, Mr Maduro has turned to Venezuela’s top court. The move has caused concern. Here we explain why. Venezuela has an electronic voting system. Voters punch in a button assigned to their preferred candidate on a voting machine.
Once the button is pressed, the machine also prints out a paper receipt. Voters place that receipt in a ballot box.
Once polling stations close, the counting begins. Each voting machine prints out a summary of all the votes cast by voters who used that particular machine. Additionally, a count of the paper receipts is also conducted at each individual polling station to confirm the machine’s printout is correct.
By law, this process is public and anyone can witness it. There are also a number of accredited witnesses representing the different parties. Once the chair of the count and the accredited witnesses are satisfied that the numbers match, they sign the tally and it is sent electronically to the CNE. Accredited witnesses are handed a copy and paper printouts of the tallies are also transported to the CNE by the military.
Source: BBC
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