Election Tech Company: Venezuela Election Results 'Tampered With'
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CARACAS, VENEZUELA (CBSMiami) -- The CEO of the firm who provided an automated system for Venezuela's election Sunday say the results were "tampered with."
The controversial vote on rewriting the Constitution, giving President Nicolas Maduro more power to create a National Constituent Assembly to replace the opposition-controlled National Assembly.
On Wednesday, the CEO of Smartmatic, Antonio Mugica, said they could not "endorse" the results for Sunday's vote even though they've been providing election tech and support services in Venezuela since 2004.
"Even in moments of deep political conflict and division, we have been satisfied that the process and the voting count has been completely accurate. It is therefore with the deepest regret that we have to report that the turnout numbers on Sunday, 30th of July for the Constituent Assembly in Venezuela were tampered with," he said.
The company claims there is a large discrepancy in between voter turnout figures reported by the National Elections Council and what the company actually got through their technology. There's a discrepancy of at least 1 million voters, said the CEO.
"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," said Mugica.
What happened?
The CEO says that during the election process auditors for the opposition party were not there since they didn't want to participate in the election.
"Our automated election system is designed to make it evident when results are manipulated, however, there must be people auditing the system and watching for that evidence," said Mugica.
He ended his statement saying he believed "this would not have occurred' if the auditors from both political parties had been present."
The president of the National Assembly is reportedly calling for an investigation into the matter.
