In Venezuelan elections, too many dead vote

(PHOTO: FIU NEWS)

While U.S. and Latin American officials say that Venezuela’s political crisis should be solved through upcoming legislative elections, recent testimony before the U.S. Senate raised many questions: It said Venezuela’s voting registry includes the names of so many dead, many states have more registered voters than people.

In March 17 testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Russ Dallen, editor in chief of the Caracas-based Latin American Herald Tribune, said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government is overseeing a voting process that almost guarantees electoral fraud in the legislative elections tentatively scheduled for September.

Before we get into whether that’s true — some U.S. experts and Venezuelan opposition figures dispute it — let’s take a look at Dallen’s figures.

According to his testimony, Venezuela’s voting registry has been manipulated by the Venezuelan and Cuban regimes since late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez contracted Cuban companies to run Venezuela’s passport and identification agencies.

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