Althouse: "We are not going to recognize the result until every vote is counted, one by one."

April 15, 2013

"We are not going to recognize the result until every vote is counted, one by one."

Said Henrique Capriles Radonski, as the Venezuelan electoral votes came in very close. "The big loser today is you, you and what you represent," he added, referring to Nicolás Maduro, whom Hugo Chávez chose as his successor.

Maduro, for his part, said "We have a just, legal, constitutional and popular electoral victory."

13 comments:

The rule of Lemnity said...: It's deja vu all over again.; 4/15/13, 7:57 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Weird how the socialists win by... this much.; 4/15/13, 8:05 AM
Phil 314 said...: unexpectedly

There's that word again.; 4/15/13, 8:10 AM
Unknown said...: Would have been funnier if this was about an election in the Republic of Chad.; 4/15/13, 8:18 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: A sign from above is a reliable tie-breaker.; 4/15/13, 8:18 AM
Darrell said...: Big deal. Nicolás Maduro would get more votes running for mayor of LA.
And it would have resulted in a lower carbon footprint for the election, with Hollywood stars staying home and all.; 4/15/13, 8:32 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Weird how the socialists win by... this much."

Chavez himself consistently won by decisive majorities.; 4/15/13, 8:47 AM
Darrell said...: Cookie says that with a straight face. The commenter probably meant "at first." When you pricks take hold, the margin of victory starts approaching 90%+.; 4/15/13, 9:16 AM
Darrell said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/15/13, 9:16 AM
Known Unknown said...: I can't believe a Polack did so well.; 4/15/13, 9:19 AM
Scott M said...: Beating the margin of fraud in that country has got to be a Sisyphean task at best.; 4/15/13, 9:21 AM
Peter said...: As far as I know, "It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes" is attributed to Joe Stalin.

But I'd assume plenty of people figured this out long before Uncle Joe was born.; 4/15/13, 9:58 AM
Steve Koch said...: Some facts about the election:

Maduro used the army and the Chavista irregular army and government workers/vehicles to get out the vote. Get out the vote in Venezuela means a soldier knocks on your door (if you are a likely Chavista), takes you to vote, and forces you to vote.

There is only one TV station in all of Venezuela that has not been taken over by the Chavistas. It was announced that that one lone holdout from gov propaganda had been sold so to a strident Chavez supporter, deal to be consummated right after election is over. This meant that anybody working for that tv station knew they would likely lose their job if they reported honestly. This meant that the tv media in Venezuela was almost entirely grossly biased against Capriles. This is a huge issue in a country like Venezuela where tv is much, much more powerful than the internet media.

If you criticize the government in Venezuela you run a serious risk of getting thrown in a Venezuelan hellhole prison where it is quite likely you will sit for years before you ever even get arraigned, let alone tried.

It was not unusual for the government to literally set up road blocks and close airports to make it difficult for Capriles to even get to his campaign stops.

It was not unusual for Chavistas to physically attack Capriles supporters if the Capriles people demonstrated.

Chavistas own the company that builds the machines/software used in the computerized voting in Venezuela. If it was close, there is no doubt they would cheat to win. For the results to have any credibility, the paper ballots have to have been protected from tampering and recounted completely. Venezuela is a lefty dictatorship and there is now way the Chavistas will leave office voluntarily.; 4/15/13, 2:11 PM