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August 4th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Venezuela’s Attorney General Luisa Ortega said she has opened an investigation into accusations that the country’s election council was involved in manipulating voter turnout figures in Sunday’s controversial election of a Constituent Assembly charged with rewriting the 1999 Constitution adopted under the late Hugo Chavez and superseding the suspended National Assembly.
The voting technology firm Smartmatic which provides voting machines for Venezuela stated earlier that the turnout figure of 8.1 million had to be manipulated and inflated by at least one million. Antonio Mugica, the head of British firm Smartmatic, , said in London, there is no question in his mind that the total reported vote was false. He did not, however, say whether vote tampering altered the outcome of Sunday’s balloting. Mugica said:
“Based on the robustness of our system, we know without any doubt that the turnout of the recent election for a National Constituent Assembly was manipulated. … We estimate the difference between the actual participation and the one announced by authorities was at least one million.”
President Nicolas Maduro and the elections council denied the accusation. In a televised speech, Maduro claimed that Mugica was pressured by the United States and Britain. He also repeated the government’s claim that eight million people voted, adding that the turnout would have been 10 million if others had not been blocked by protesters. “This election cannot be stained by anyone, because it was a transparent vote,” Maduro said.
Attorney General Luisa Ortega, for her part, said to reporters that the accusations constituted another element in the fraudulent, illegal and unconstitutional process. Ortega said she would be investigating allegations about voter fraud and election manipulation.
The “dissident” Attorney General previously described the Constituent Assembly as non-representative and corporatist. Ortega also filed criminal charges against several Supreme Court judges for crimes against the republic, among others.
The judges found themselves not guilty and responded by slamming Ortega with a travel ban, an asset freeze, and by limiting her prosecutorial powers. Ortega can now only file criminal charges with the approval from a sitting judge. The Supreme Court, in collusion with socialist party (PSUV) officials have for months questioned Ortega’s actions and have begun judicial proceedings to remove her from office on the grounds that she has overstepped her authority. Ortega had described Sunday’s vote as illegal.
Maduro on Sunday said one of the top priorities of the constituent assembly, which has no formal restrictions on its power, would be a ‘restructuring’ of the chief prosecutor’s office. Socialist Party officials have suggested that the new assembly will remove her from office. Leaders from the Roundtable of Democratic Unity (MUD) and from a number of civil society organizations are calling for a march to the center of Caracas on Friday to protest the creation of the 545-member constituent assembly. The MUD held an absolute majority in the National Assembly. The Supreme Court suspended the legislative branch of government earlier this year claiming it was in contempt. MUD leaders called the claims about the elction results a bold-faced lie, among others.
The new Constituent Assembly is empowered to write a new constitution and may dissolve state institutions, including the MUD-led parliament / congress. Maduro claims it will bring peace to the convulsed OPEC nation after four months of violent opposition street protests that have left more than 120 people dead. His critics accuse him of running roughshod over the country’s democratic institutions, of conducting a constitutional coup, and of overseeing an economic collapse that has left millions struggling to eat and driven inflation into the triple digits.
The Information Ministry, when asked for comment on the prosecution office announcement, referred journalists to statements on Wednesday by National Elections Council chief Tibisay Lucena in response to Smartmatic, which came prior to the prosecutor’s announcement. Only 3.7 million people had voted by 5:30 p.m. in the vote for the assembly, according to internal elections council data reviewed by Reuters and other news media. The elections council extended voting to 7 p.m., but some centers are thought to have stayed open longer.
CH/L – nsnbc 04.08.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/08/04/venezuelan-attorney-general-launches-investigation-into-alleged-vote-manipulation/
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