In an interview with Spanish newspaper El País over the weekend, Australian-American mathematician of Chinese origin Terence Tao said the chance of the official result of the July 28 presidential election in Venezuela corresponding to reality is “one in 100 million.” .
Tao is one of the most renowned mathematicians today and in 2006 he won the Fields Medal, considered the Nobel Prize in Mathematics.
The official result of the election in Venezuela released by the National Electoral Council (CNE), organized by Chavismo, indicated that the dictator Nicolás Maduro would have received exactly 51.2% of the valid votes. His main opponent, Edmundo González, would have obtained exactly 44.2%. The rest of the candidates would have totaled 4.6%.
In the interview with El País, Tao, who analyzed the data, stated that it is highly unlikely that such exact results, with just one decimal place, were recorded.
“Exactly 51.2%, for example. This is very unusual. The probability of this happening by chance is one in 100 million, but it could be explained if the election was rigged. The president (Maduro) may have said to the electoral council: ‘I want these percentages to be the result’. Manipulation is a plausible explanation, while chance is not. This increases the probability that the election was rigged,” said the mathematician.
“There are three hypotheses. One is that the elections were fair and the results were reported accurately. The second is that there was vote manipulation. And the third is that the electoral commission made a big mistake, due to incompetence and not bad intentions,” Tao added.
“The first hypothesis is almost disposable, as it is extremely unlikely that these percentages were the real ones. Therefore, there are two possibilities: either the Venezuelan government is corrupt or it is incompetent. Both could explain these data. Two months have passed since the elections and I believe that, over time, the probability of manipulation has increased, because the results for each electoral zone have not yet been published”, argued the mathematician.
For now, the CNE, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), which ratified the council’s official result, and the Maduro dictatorship have not released the detailed numbers by electoral section.
The opposition, in turn, made copies of more than 80% of the minutes available the day after the vote, which prove that González was the winner of the election.