Nelson wants Venezuela's voting system reviewed

WASHINGTON - Sen. Bill Nelson Tuesday asked the Organization of American States and the Carter Center to review Venezuela's decision to purchase an untested voting system to be used in a recall referendum on President Hugo Chávez.

Nelson, a Florida Democrat who has been highly critical of Chávez, also plans to raise the issue at a meeting of the Foreign Relations Committee Thursday, and warn colleagues that Venezuela's late switch to a touch-screen system could threaten ``a free and fair election.''

The Carter Center and the OAS monitored the contentious process that led to the recall vote, set for Aug. 15. The drive to recall Chávez and the battles over his rule have deeply polarized Venezuela.

Venezuela's National Electoral Council, with a majority of Chávez supporters, awarded a $91 million contract in February to Boca Raton-based Smartmatic Corp. and two other firms to provide 20,000 touch-screen machines never before used in an election.

more: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/8988503.htm

system which prints a ballot for the voter to confirm, and then drops the ballot into the ballot box.

I don't think many American politicians cared too much when they used the ES&S system, which had no paper trail at all.

Maybe he'd better worry more about ensuring fair elections in his own state rather than trying to stroke the rightwing Latin American expatriate community.

One wonders, who prompts him to do this sort of thing.

And we want a paper trail.

They tend to have riots in the streets down there when someone steals an election. Probably why Chavez wants a verifiable paper trail.

Usually elections are run by local government. Chavez has political opponents in the states and municipalities. Maybe Chavez's purchase of the new machines was to protect his own party against fraud at the local level.

The opposition has already commited fraud in the recall process. In There were hundreds of thousands of illegal signatures on the peitition which had to be sifted through to count the legitimate ones.

He's not content to bash Castro, but he also has to go after Castro's friends.

Meh.

fraud.

Our country is in deep shit.

The Venezuelan run-aways hiding in Florida are joined at the hip to the Cuban "exile" hardliners, whom Nelson fears, and from whom he takes his direction.

He has NEVER strayed from their careful management.