Editorial: Venezuela turmoil shows why integrity of elections is so important in America

The turmoil surrounding Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela show us why election integrity is so important. It also can help us understand why many Latin Americans continue to flee to the United States — and won’t stop, regardless of the measures we take to discourage and deter them.

Nicolas Maduro, who has held power since 2013, on Monday announced he had won another term with 51.2% of the vote. However, opposition leaders say they have proof that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia defeated Maturo, and by a wide margin. They say they have verified copies of vote tallies that are automatically produced during the voting process for 80% of the polling sites, and that Gonzalez received 67% percent of the votes on them. Even if Maduro had gotten every vote in the remaining 20% of the precincts, they say, he still couldn’t make up the difference.

Maduro, challenged to produce evidence of his declared win, said he couldn’t because the government’s computer system had been hacked.

The Carter Center, an international organization that sends officials to monitor elections where the possibility of voter fraud exists or has happened in the past, reported that Venezuela’s election “did not meet international standards of voter integrity and cannot be considered democratic.”

In public polling, both before and after the election, large majorities indicated they were voting for Gonzalez.

Since the vote, Venezuelan citizens have flooded the streets to protest, and Maduro has ordered crackdowns that already have led to more than a dozen deaths and hundreds of arrests.

Sadly, Maduro’s actions are seen far too often in regimes where dictators resort to illegitimate means, and even violence, to stay in power. They’re also the kinds of despotic actions we saw from President Donald Trump when he fought to remain in office after losing the 2020 election, and arguably incited the violent assault on our nation’s Capitol as Congress met to certify the election on Jan. 6, 2021.

It’s why so many Americans have resisted efforts in Trump-friendly states, including Texas, to impose more hurdles and deterrents to our own voting process, ostensibly in the name of election security.

Even many people who prefer Trump to other election options have said they don’t want to allow our country, this international bastion of freedom, to fall under the jackboot of dictatorship — even if it’s Trump.

But it’s also why so many people continue to leave despotic regimes and come to our borders, despite our efforts to deter them.

It doesn’t matter how high we build our walls, how many miles of razor wire and saw blades we hang in the Rio Grande, they will continue to come.

It’s because life under despotic rule is so much worse than any barrier we might place before their hope for a better life — no matter how brutal such a barrier might be.

As we prepare for our own elections in November, let us take note of what has happened in Venezuela, Russia and other countries where the legitimacy of their voting has come under question, and the desperation of the thousands of people who flee regimes where officials purport to be authoritarian leaders rather than public servants.