How Maduro Stole Venezuela's Vote

Abstract

On July 28 of last year, an opposition candidate defeated Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro at the polls—and then used the government's own voting technology to prove it. Yet Maduro remains in power. We explain why an elected autocrat would choose transparent, auditable vote-counting technology. Hugo Chávez, Maduro's predecessor, installed this technology when he was popular and needed to defend real electoral returns against false accusations of fraud. Maduro maintained the technology even as he lost popular support, because military loyalty provided insurance: When he actually won an election, transparent vote-counting rendered his victory maximally legitimizing; when he lost, he stayed in office anyway. We argue that Venezuela's vote-counting technology nonetheless holds promise for prodemocracy forces across the globe.