Venezuelans to the Polls
Today, the Venezuelan electorate chooses its first president not named Hugo Chavez since 1999. Via the BBC: Venezuelans vote to choose Hugo Chavez successor:
Acting President Nicolas Maduro, chosen by Mr Chavez as his successor, is running against Henrique Capriles, currently governor of Miranda state.
Mr Capriles narrowly lost to Mr Chavez in elections last October.
Odds are quite high the Maduro will win.
There are seven total candidates in the race (list here). A copy of the ballot can be found here (note that Maduro is the nominee of multiple parties).
Voting is electronic in Venezuela (process here):
Voting is electronic – one machine will identify voters’ fingerprints, and a second will recognise identity card numbers and register the vote anonymously.
Polls opened at 06:30 local time (11:00 GMT) and will close 10 hours later, although they will stay open until all those queuing at closing time have voted.
Official results are expected about three hours after the polls close.
Why is it that Venezuela can come up with what seems like a workable electronic voting system and here in the US we’re going back to paper ballots and old fashioned voting machines?
@Doug Mataconis: Indeed.
Additionally, why can Venezuela figure out that voting on a day when more people are not working is a good idea, but the US cannot.
@Neil Hudelson: Because we are exceptional! 😉
@Doug Mataconis:
1-) In Venezuela, like in all over Latin America, Elections are centralized at the Federal Level and organized by an independent body. In the US, elections are organized by elected officials at county and state level.
2-) There is no such large number of state initiatives and things like that. The number of elected officials that you have to vote is not as large as in the US, where you vote even for the dog catcher.