The CNE’s decision to impose January 26 as the date to collect the signatures required to activate the recall referendum against Nicolás Maduro violated four sub-legal standards approved by the CNE in 2007 to regulate these processes:
• Standards regulating the promotion and request for recall elections of popularly elected officials approved under Resolution No. 070906-2770, dated September 6, 2007 and published in the Electoral Gazette No. 405 dated December 18, 2007.
• Standards regulating recall referenda, approved under Resolution No. N 070327-341, dated March 27, 2007 and published in the Electoral Gazette No. 369 dated April 13, 2007.
• Standards regulating the operation of the expressions of willingness reception point to request recall referenda, approved under Resolution No. 070516-658 dated May 16, 2007 and published in the Electoral Gazette No. 376 dated May 28, 2007.
• Standards regulating the Action of the expressions of willingness reception to request recall referenda, approved under Resolution No. 070516-659 dated May 16, 2007 and published in the Electoral Gazette No. 376 dated May 28, 2007.
Meanwhile, the final number of points to collect expressions of willingness decreased from the 1,200 approved by the CNE, to 709 collection centers deployed. Based on the historic voting behavior in the areas where these points were deployed, it can be concluded that 146 points (20.60%) were located in the areas with an increased trend to vote for chavismo, while 278 points (39%) were deployed in the areas with pro-opposition historic voting trend. This CNE’s provision violated the principle of deploying collection points, considering “the geographical variations and the voting population”.
Finally, it is worth stressing that the CNE -endorsed by the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice- upheld the criteria of demanding that “the recall referendum require the collection of twenty percent (20%) of the expressions of willingness of the electoral instance in all states and the Capital District (…) Failure to collect this percentage in any state or the Capital District would invalidate the calling for a presidential recall referendum”.
This requirement, not provided for in the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela -which was not used in 2004- deemed the electoral performance of November 21, despite including the votes of the MUD-G4 with the votes of the organizations representing the Democratic Alliance, insufficient to activate the recall referendum against Maduro (see the figures attached).
The CNE theoretically approved an infrastructure of 1,200 collection centers to collect the signatures on Wednesday January 26 to apparently operate for 12 hours straight. This deployment was technically insufficient to meet the constitutional requirement of collecting 20% (4,185,998 out of 20,929,987) of signatures of the registered voters according to the last cutoff date of the Electoral Registry corresponding to the Regional and Municipal Elections held on November 21, 2021.
According to Rector Roberto Pic n -who voted against this decision- collecting the 20% required the signature of 5 voters every minute steadily in each one of the 1.200 collection centers. It was not possible, because the CNE instructed its staff to request the interested parties to provide the following information:
• Home full address
• Mobile phone
• Home phone number
Collection day
The insufficient promotion of the event, including its promoters urging not to participate in the collection led to a preliminary number of expressions of willingness collected ranging between 40,000 and 45,000 adherences. This preliminary report released by Diosdado Cabello excluded the process of fingerprint cleaning and removing double signatures and irregular fingerprints that the CNE should implement.
According to the schedule of the CNE, this cleaning stage would be developed between February 7 and 10 and the verification results will be formally announced on February 13.
However, on January 27, Rector Tania D Amelio, President of the National Electoral Board, officially announced that 42,000 expressions of willingness were received in favor of the recall referendum. According to D’Amelio, these data were deemed sufficient to rule that the request for recall referendum against Nicolás Maduro was not admissible. She also said that the CNE overruled a new request for recall referendum against Maduro for this period.
