i don't think i really need to explain the concept of levels of specificity. this isn't actually a real argument being pursued in good faith but a determined and deliberate waste of my time.
Venezualan election 2024
- Thread starter Agema
- Start date
If I want to confirm it, I can look at court documents, and those are usually provided with the claims that dems have done so. The entire premise of the Venezuelan election being fraudulent is "trust me bro". There's definitely different levels of credulousness these situations should be given.
Do I need to explain that saying something is different from saying WE BOTH KNOW that thing? That the one leaves something unspecified while the other doesn't? I don't think so. At some point it is time to stop going around in circles with a determined bullshitter.
Firstly, please note that the original claim that prompted the endless dispute from Sean was not that the election was fraudulent, but that there was repression from the government. That would cover things like innocuous or non-violent parties being barred from participation-- for which there are official records, equivalent to those court documents.
But I shouldn't need to point out that solely trusting official government sources, and distrusting all others, is a fast track to uncritical bootlicking and leaves literally zero room for exposing extrajudicial abuses. For allegations against a government's conduct outside the courtroom, we can and do (and must) use independent sources. And some of them have a hell of a lot more reliability, corroboration and earned trust than "trust me bro".
Some gov supporters will want to reduce any and all critical reports to the level of pure speculation, leaving us just with whatever is on-the-books or the state's line on what else is happening. Just imagine applying the same approach to the US and UK. It's untenable.
If you're talking about Machado, she's openly called for foreign governments to send in their militaries to overthrow Venezuela. I don't count that as innocuous and non-violent.
And nobody said that, just that the claims for corruption aren't really that credible. And certainly, they're highly hypocritical.
I'm not, as I've said.
Nobody would outwardly state it, and yet that's the approach being taken. Quite a few very questionable aspects are matters of public record: that the CNE has failed to provide the tally sheets and local results as they are required by law to do; that numerous parties were barred from contesting, including non-violent socialists and Chavez' old allies; that a tiny minority of a few tens of thousands of overseas Venezuelans were able to vote, out of an eligible base of several million; that international observers from the EU, Colombia and elsewhere were barred entry.
Is such criticism hypocritical when it comes from (for example) Lula, who has his own experience of being on the receiving end of electoral shenanigans?
I went through that list of parties and almost every one they mentioned were either direct Machado supporters or were tied to Machado. As other people said in this thread, banning 5th column traitors is just obvious governance. As for Lula, he's asking for the election to be run again, which is fair enough, he can have his opinion.
What, like Chavez' old allies in MAS? No, that's categorically untrue.
>6m eligible voters lived abroad. According to the CNE itself, <70,000 were able to vote (not 70k did vote; 70k were able). Reasons ranged from no available consulates being empowered to change address, to the requirement to hold a valid Venezuelan passport, which cost $200. This is all also a matter of public record-- the numbers and requirements come from the CNE itself.
I mean, we rightly condemn it as voter suppression when the US parties *manipulate turnout by making the ID/cost requirements to vote prohibitive. Here we have the gov implementing a barrier far, far, far more prohibitive, and yet the same voices are telling us it's fine and to look the other way.
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erm.... that's not what gerrymandering is. anyway, I'm not actually that knowledgeable about the particulars of US overseas voting: why don't you go investigate the requirements for doing that if you want to make an apples to apples comparison? Is it possible for US citizens to vote from abroad without a US passport? I honestly don't know, although I have my suspicions.
Misspoke. Meant "manipulating".
I didn't particularly want to dive into the weeds of a comparison, because this isn't a competition and both can be shit; my simple point was that we rightly complain when prohibitive barriers are put up for US and UK elections, and the Venezuelan election had extraordinarily prohibitive barriers up for >6 million voters, resulting in a severely suppressed vote.
But out of interest, I did look through the requirements. No passport required-- state-required ID is fine. Address can be updated online. It's a bigger pain than voting in-person (requiring more advance time and more frequent updates), but nowhere near as prohibitive as Venezuela. The voting base in 2022 was just over 100,000, out of ~3m eligible voters, in comparison with <70,000 out of >6m.
you really don't see a problem with comparing how a country deals with people voting from outside its boundaries to how another handles voting within its boundaries?
This would be pretty objectionable if everyone in the US had to do it and not just everyone voting from abroad:
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/while-abroad/voting.html said:
As I said, I wasn't really making that comparison. The crux of my point isn't a comparison of the countries' approaches, determining who is worse-- the crux is a comparison of how prohibitive barriers to voting are treated by critics. Unacceptable when we don't like the gov; Fine when we do.
Agreed. I also think it's unnecessarily restrictive for overseas voters.
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The list has more than MAS on it, my statement stands. Why MAS wasn't allowed to run a candidate I don't know and could certainly be fishy and underhanded. But it's also something that just happens in western democracies and while we acknowledge it's underhanded, we don't use it as proof of widespread corruption and reason to discount an election.
Nobody said it was fine. However it's also not normally used as proof of an illegitimate election (depending on the state performing these activities). What's a way larger thumb on the electoral scales in Venezuela is US action that US state actors directly say on national television are designed to overthrow the Venezuelan government.
It has more than MAS-- including other socialists. In isolation, this is not necessarily indicative of a widespread issue. Along with the CNE breaking electoral law around transparency? And barring observers? And blocking millions of voters with arcane voting barriers? It all starts to raise a stink.
I'm not saying "discount the election". Release the tally sheets, as required by law, so they can be checked-- then remove arbitrary restrictions on voters and moderate minority parties in time for the next election. And if reports of peaceful protesters arrested are true, release them, and launch an inquiry into abuses.
Yet, every criticism so far has been handwaved away by whataboutism or denial. Noone has said "it's happening and it's fine". There just seems to be no shits given about democratic backsliding when the potential culprit is in favour.
Uhhhh, there were observers. Just not from the US or EU. Probably for the same reason Ukraine won't be allowing Russian observers of their elections.
No, nobody cares because nothing serious has been raised. Every complaint is something that already happens in western democracies and has been pointed out that these things become even more lax when the country in question is under siege. Like, we all collectively blew off Trumpers when they whined about stolen elections again and again, and we know the countries raising the biggest stink about Venezuela's elections have a committed stake in being right and are notorious liars about Latin American elections.
So, whataboutism. When they happen in Western democracies we criticise them.
Also, when you say these things become lax under siege? Please recall that the same voices now telling me not to criticise the Venezuelan election were the ones telling me the Ukrainian election should be discounted and didn't count as democracy at all because they banned a couple of tiny fifth-columnist parties. And Ukraine was literally under military attack and partial occupation at the time.
No, but you've interjected into a conversation I was having with one to tell me how wrong I am, so the context matters.