Voting access & participation in Venezuela's indigenous & Afrodiasporic

7/29/2019 Voting access & participation in Venezuela's indigenous & Afrodiasporic

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Esther Pineda G – Entrevista Voting access & participation in Venezuela's

indigenous & Afrodiasporic communities. IntLawGrrls: Voces en el derecho

internacional, la política y la práctica, 8 de Diciembre 2012

October 7, the general Election Day in Venezuela, falls on a Sunday. That day, in my

capacity as an international election accompañamiento, or “accompaniment,” I traveled

to many sites in Venezuela. Specifically, I visited eleven precincts across the eastern

state of Monagas, along with two domestic observers, a Swiss human rights advocate, a

Brazilian professor of international law, and two journalists from Chile and Uruguay.

When we arrived at the remote indigenous Warao community of Mosú at 8:40 in the

morning, we observed that 60% of thepeople in the community had already exercised

their right to vote.

Our delegation spoke with Santo Garcia, the elected administrator of the indigenous

school in the town of Mosú. Garcia stated:

‘Every person who wants to exercise their vote has been able to do so…. As it says in

the Constitution approved in 1999, every indigenous community needs to elect their

representatives.’



No outsiders – other than the staff of Consejo Nacional Electoral, also known as the

National Electoral Council or CNE, as well as officials, observers, and international

accompaniers – were allowed to enter the community, under the local regulations

regarding indigenous autonomy.

CNE is an independent, fourth branch of government. It derives from the power of the

people as set forth in Articles 136 and 296 of the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution, and

works affirmatively to create spaces for indigenous and afrodiasporic minority voters to

exercise the franchise. (credit for photo by Uruguay Delegation, CNE

Accompañamiento Internacional de las Elecciones del 7 de octubre, 2012, Comunidad

Indigena Mosú, Caripito, Bolívar, Estado de Monagas, Venezuela)

Professor Esther G. Pineda (left), a sociologist at the Universidad Central de Venezuela,

writes:

‘In creating new electoral centers in remote communities that historically had been

forgotten as afrodescendent and low-income communities, the initiatives of the Consejo

Nacional Electoral (CNE) create a system that prioritizes security and confidence in the

voters, as a massive investment in the education and formation of voters who respect the

procedures to exercise the right to vote. This investment has clearly had a return, and a

significant impact on reducing the numbers of abstentions and null votes. In a highly

politicized and polarized society such as Venezuelan society, in which the population

has become a part of the political process every day – this has become an evolving

process in the participatory and active exercise of one’s citizenship.



‘As a result, there has been a major consolidation of spaces for debate in a society in

which diverse opinions and thoughts were formerly silenced; now afrodescendent men

and women have the opportunity to express themselves and reflect on their own

situation and experiences, specifically those which have resulted in the massive

formulation of policy proposals and projects by and for diverse afrodescendent groups

and communities.’

In my view, as an observer this autumn of both the U.S. and the Venezuelan elections,

the clarity of the national standards, technical audits and accountability measures built

into Venezuela’s electoral process stand in stark contrast to the lack of transparency and

struggles with voter ID requirements and other forms of suppression in the United

States.

Socorro Hernánde z

CNE Director Socorro Hernández, herself elected by the Faculty of Law and Political

Sciences from Venezuela’s National Universities, has reflected on the ownership that

citizens in Venezuela maintain by participating directly in the auditing process throughthe “citizen’s audit,” or citizen vote verification process. After voting anonymously on



the electronic machines, citizens also receive a paper receipt which is then placed in a

ballot box.

Once the elections have closed, the receipts are required by law to be counted by hand

by members of the local electoral mesas, witnessed by at least one representative from

two opposing political parties, open to the public, and compared to the electronic results

in 54% of the polling stations nationwide. This is a mandatory post-election procedure,

required by Venezuela’s 2009 Organic Law of Electoral Processes. By the end of this

October, over 99.89%or 15,160,289 out of 15,176,253 votes, were scrutinized, and

successfully passed the post-election vote verification and audit process.

The number and location of voting centers, professionalism of electoral officials,

accuracy of digital and manual vote calculation, as well as the success of the citizen

vote verification process also known as the “citizen’s audit,” provide clear examples of

progress on access and participation in Venezuela’s electoral process and offer some

food for thought as we continue to pursue our right to a universal, secret, and direct

voting process here in the United States.

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Voting access & participation in Venezuela's indigenous & Afrodiasporic