AUDIT FINDS
MANY DEAD VOTERS
IN VENEZUELA

By Ian James, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, March 21, 2006


(03-21) 16:40 PST CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) --


An international audit concluded there are tens of thousands of dead voters listed on Venezuela's voter rolls, but the country's top electoral official said Tuesday that those errors are being fixed and do not amount to significant flaws.


The audit confirmed the voter registry is sound despite critics' claims of gross irregularities, electoral council president Jorge Rodriguez said.


Critics expressed doubts about the auditors' independence and accused the electoral council of siding with President Hugo Chavez, who is seeking re-election in December.


"With the Venezuelan voter registry just as it is now, the upcoming elections could be held," Rodriguez said as he announced the audit's results. He said it found inaccurate records accounted for less than 2 percent of the total.


That included an estimated 54,900 dead voters on the rolls, and about 39,400 others whose deaths have yet to be confirmed but are listed as being older than 100. Rodriguez said both are significant problems but constitute a tiny fraction of some 15 million registered voters.


"There cannot be dead people in the voter registry," he said. "The inconsistencies that were found, no matter how small, will be addressed."


Electoral workers are constantly updating the voter registry and have already eliminated old records for 400,000 dead people in recent years to prevent any possible fraud, Rodriguez said.


Auditors from the Costa Rica-based Electoral Consulting and Promotion Center analyzed samples of thousands of voters last year to reach their conclusions, officials said. The center is part of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights and functions as an association of electoral agencies in Latin America.


"The opposition has serious doubts" about the audit, said Roberto Ansuini, a former electoral official who opposes Chavez and has researched flaws in the voter lists. "When we have the report, we can make our observations."


Officials said the auditors' report will be released later this week.


The audit did not directly address a case raised by Ansuini in which 1,921 people by the name Gonzalez were listed with an identical birth date, all in the one western state.


Carlos Quintero, director of the voter registry office, said officials checked electronic records against paper archives, and found errors in some 900 of those cases. He said officials believe the wrong birth date was entered in many cases when the data was transferred from paper files to computers years ago.


Rodriguez said the electoral council would post the voter registry on the Internet starting Tuesday to dispel any suspicions.