“The Chamber requests the CNE to submit, within the period of three (3) judicial working days (…) the instruments related to the presidential election process of July 28, 2024,” explains sentence 026 of process 2024-0000034 of the STJ.
The decision of the Electoral Chamber, one of the six chambers that make up the full STJ, was published on social network X, and among the requested documents are the national tally minutes, total final numbers, adjudication numbers, and proclamation numbers.
“It is a public, notorious, and communicable fact that the cyber attack reported against the CNE’s computer system prevented the timely transmission of electoral results; we also request (…) all the evidence associated with this event,” it explains.
For several days now, it has been impossible to access the websites of the Supreme Court of Justice and the National Electoral Council of Venezuela.
Last Thursday, August 1, the STJ accepted a request from President Nicolás Maduro to certify the results of the last presidential elections in which he was re-elected for a new six-year term (2025-2031).
On Friday, nine of the ten electoral candidates summoned by the STJ – Nicolás Maduro, Luis Martínez, Daniel Ceballos, Antonio Ecarry, Benjamín Raússeo, Enrique Marques, José Brito, Javier Bertucci, and Claudio Fermín – appeared before that body, with some stating to journalists that they were unaware of the content of the appeal presented by the Head of State.
One of the summoned, the main opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, did not appear before the STJ, prompting the President of Venezuela to warn that this would have “inevitable consequences.”
Without disclosing the content of the appeal, Maduro stated that the Government and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela are ready to disclose all electoral minutes and accused the internal opposition of trying to “execute a coup using the electoral process,” with the help of opponents abroad.
Maduro also requested that the electoral results be certified “with an expert opinion of the highest technical level” and expressed his willingness to be summoned, interrogated, investigated, and subjected to justice.
According to the CNE, Maduro was re-elected with 6,408,844 votes, 51.95% of the total, with the main opposition candidate, González Urrutia, coming in second with 5,326,104 votes, 43.18%.
In the second information bulletin regarding the electoral process, the CNE stated that there were 12,335,884 valid votes in the presidential elections of July 28. According to the CNE, candidate Luís Martínez received 152,360 votes (1.24%), and the remaining candidates all received less than 1%.
The electoral council argued that it had suffered a cyber attack, yet this did not prevent it from declaring Maduro a “irreversible victory” from the first official information bulletin.
The Venezuelan opposition claimed victory in the presidential elections, asserting that González Urrutia received 70% of the votes, with opposition leader María Corina Machado refusing to recognize the official results, based on minutes in the possession of the opposition coalition.
The Carter Center (CC), one of the organizations invited by the Venezuelan government to observe the presidential elections, stated on Tuesday that it was unable to verify the results of the elections, blaming the authorities for a “complete lack of transparency” in declaring Maduro the winner.
“The presidential elections in Venezuela did not meet the parameters and international standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic,” the center indicated in a statement released on its website.
Several countries, including Portugal, are calling for the electoral minutes to be disclosed.