Sins of Omission II: Venezuela

In the previous post I address the return of open partisanship among the media elite and use the ongoing Christmas-in-Cambodia story as an example. The same partisanship is on display in the coverage of Sunday's election in Venezuela, which I commented on here and here. The WSJ's news and editorial pages are almost alone in entertaining the possibility that Chavez has stolen the election. The New York Times, in an "analysis" remarkable for its contentiousness even by their own standards, blames Chavez's hostility to America (and, I might add, democrats) on American hostility to his regime. Their take is summed up in the article's title: "The Chavez Victory: A Blow to the Bush Administration."

The Journal's news room ($) is considerably fairer, although you have to keep reading to get to the more skeptical lines:

"[O]ne Carter official acknowledged that their initial monitoring of Sunday's vote left some questions unanswered. Venezuelan election officials had agreed with the opposition to audit 1% of the 19,200 voting machines -- or 192 machines. The Carter Center was supposed to audit five machines, and the OAS another eight, of that number, according to officials from the Carter Center. On the night of the vote, however, the Carter Center and OAS audited only one machine each -- in part because voting didn't end until early Monday and workers from both organizations were exhausted. They say, however, that results from both audits matched the electronic record.

"The wider audit also had problems. Just 84 of a planned 192 audits were carried out, according to the National Electoral Council. The government says opposition members were present at 64 of those, but opposition officials say they witnessed just 27 audits. Furthermore, some of the government's audits weren't carried out properly, officials from the Carter Center say. For instance, officials counted the total number of ballots, but not how many were 'yes' votes and how many were 'no' votes. Despite the problems, both former President Jimmy Carter and OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria publicly endorsed the results at a news conference midday Monday, based mostly on a so-called quick count of computerized results from the stations -- something that wouldn't have detected manipulation of the electronic vote count."

Well, that's a bit of a problem, no?

The Journal's Mary Anastasia O'Grady ($) jumps all over this mess in her weekly Americas column. Noting the yawning gaps of such non-monitoring efforts, she writes:

"On Monday, the Carter Center along with the head of the monumentally meaningless Organization of American States, Cesar Gaviria, endorsed Chávez's claims of victory in the Venezuelan recall referendum, rather too hastily it now seems. The problem was that the 'observers' hadn't actually observed the election results. Messrs. Carter and Gaviria were only allowed to make a 'quick count,' that is look at the tally sheets spat out by a sample of voting machines. They were not allowed to check this against ballots the machines issued to voters as confirmation that their votes were properly registered. If there was fraud, as many Venezuelans now suspect, it could have been discovered if the ballots didn't match the computer tallies. The tallies alone were meaningless. The problem was clear by Tuesday but it didn't stop the State Department spokesman Adam Ereli from chiming in. 'The people of Venezuela have spoken,' he proclaimed."

And John Lott of AEI told her that "You can easily write a program that tells the voting machine to record something different in its memory than what it prints out on the receipt that is to be dropped in the ballot box."

Ms. O'Grady is right to take the administration to task for its cave-in to forces at State, the OAS, and within the pro-status-quo academic community. "But Americans have a right to expect a sterner approach from the administration of George W. Bush. State's endorsement of this referendum without a fair audit is a sorry betrayal of not only the Venezuelan people but American ideals. It is tantamount to yielding to terrorism. Observing Washington's supine reaction, Chávez will not hesitate to escalate his efforts to restore authoritarianism on the South American continent."

Pejmanesque is following this story; no update yet on the condition of Thor Halvorssen's mother.

Update: Via Swanky Conservative, a Venezuelan blogger at Salon with the bizarre name Satan's Poop has photos of the shooting that killed one woman and wounded Thor's mother. He also helps explain the seemingly unlikely "coincidence" that in about 500 cases, according to the WSJ($), "votes to oust Mr. Chavez tabulated by one voting machine matched the result in a nearby voting machine."