Cybersecurity Specialist Discusses Fraud Allegations and Voting Security Measures in Venezuela's Presidential Vote

Amidst the uproar since the July 28 elections in Venezuela, supporters of opposition candidates have swirled conspiracy theories claiming fraud to deny Edmundo Gonzalez, a right-wing candidate backed by Maria Corina Machado, his victory. We dug deep into the labyrinthine Venezuelan electoral system with Victor Theoktisto, a computer science professor at Simon Bolivar University, to clear up the fog surrounding it.

The July 28 presidential elections concluded as usual, with Elvis Amoroso, National Electoral Council (CNE) president, announcing the results at 12:13 am on July 29: Nicola Maduro obtained 5,150,092 votes (51.20%), edging out Edmundo Gonzalez, the main opposition candidate, who garnered 4,445,978 votes (44.2%).

However, the announcement wouldn't have been noteworthy if it weren't for two delay-causing factors:

Amoroso's report of a cyberattack against the data transmission system, and
Supporters of Gonzalez and Maria Corina Machado sharing photos of voting machine tallies on social media, denying Maduro's victory long after the announcement.

The following day, Machado and Gonzalez declared they had obtained tally sheets (initially 40%, then 70%, and eventually 80%), providing their own results: 7,156,462 votes for Edmundo Gonzalez (67%) and 3,241,461 votes for Nicola Maduro (30%).

It isn't the first time the opposition has shouted fraud during significant Venezuelan elections. But this time, they launched three websites posting 24,000 alleged tally sheets from voting machines.

In Venezuela, elections are automated, with each voter casting a ballot at a machine that prints a receipt which gets placed in a box. The machine keeps track of each vote, and at the end of the process, polling station members, along with political party witnesses, conduct a closing protocol that sees the machine print a paper report. The machine then links to a CNE tallying center and transmits the results. Copies of the tally sheet are provided for the witnesses of each political party.

The opposition claims that the tally sheets were collected by their witnesses and presents records from 24,000 polling stations. In 48 hours, the paper tallies were scanned, photographed, and classified on a website, broken down by state, municipality, and voting center, allowing people to review the results. The CNE has never published scanned tallies on its website, but it has published polling station results for nearly 20 years. However, the problem is that the CNE website has been down since before the elections, and it hasn't been possible to verify the published data.

In light of these issues, President Nicola Maduro, proclaimed the winner on Monday by the CNE, went to the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) on Wednesday, July 30, to request an investigation and clarification of the process. Maduro demanded that all candidates, as well as the National Electoral Council, be summoned and that all necessary records and legal documents, including the tally sheets, be submitted. He even offered to provide 100% of the tally sheets from his party's witnesses.

The TSJ's Electoral Chamber summoned the ten candidates, and nine out of the ten attended, except for Edmundo Gonzalez, the one making fraud accusations.

With the CNE and the opposition offering two completely different results, it's evident that one party is lying. The Venezuelan people impatiently wait for evidence and answers, not just to confirm who won the elections, but also to learn who is lying, causing discord and chaos in a nation battered by continuous foreign attacks for at least 20 years, with its people denied the chance to live in peace.

The Machado and Gonzalez fraud claims were accompanied by violent protests in various cities across the country on Monday, July 29, and Tuesday, July 30, leaving several people dead, dozens injured, and damaging numerous institutions and public infrastructure. The Venezuelan government has reported that several of the violence perpetrators were part of criminal gangs, with many confessing to being hired to cause chaos.

Maduro has denounced an ongoing coup supported by the United States government, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken predictably backed Gonzalez as the supposed winner of the elections.

The Venezuelan electoral system has been ranked as one of the best and most secure in the world. However, incidents like these tend to obscure these facts and fuel outrageous conjectures.

Technical Insight: An Interview with Victor Theoktisto

To shed some light on the tech side of the situation, we quizzed Victor Theoktisto, a tenured professor in the Department of Computing and Information Technology at Simon Bolivar University (USB). He was part of a team of expert auditors from the university who were called upon by the CNE in 2021 and 2024 to review and provide their opinion on the Venezuelan electoral system.

They studied the system in depth and prepared reports with recommendations. They were also joined by computer science professors from other universities, such as the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), all with various political positions but considerable experience in computing and mathematics.

This auditing process was also broadcast on a YouTube channel created by the CNE at the time.

The system was originally developed by Smartmatic, and in recent years, the Argentine company Ex-cle has also been involved. The professors examined the system's source code line by line, including the fingerprint scanners, voting machines, and the transmission and tallying systems at both CNE locations (Plaza Venezuela and Plaza Caracas).

Professor Theoktisto emphasized that the security measures are "ridiculously exaggerated," particularly those used for transmission, which include algorithms such as SHA-256 and AES in three or four layers. To decrypt or modify the information transmitted through these layers, someone would need machines running extraordinarily powerful computers for approximately 400 years.

He explains that, as a result, there are no reports of data being modified or altered during transmission.

There have been reports of two separate attacks:

The attack on the National Electoral Council website (where election results, including results by polling station, should be published).
The attack on the transmission system, causing delays in the transfer of information from the voting machines to the tallying centers for a few hours (there are two tallying centers: one at the CNE headquarters in Plaza Venezuela and the other at Plaza Caracas).

Regarding the attack on the tallying process, Theoktisto couldn't answer our question since neither the CNE nor Cantv (the state telecommunications company) has provided details, limiting our speculation.

Indeed, the voting machines transmit results via a network physically separate from the internet and equipped with encryption and encoding protocols. They can transmit via dial-up telephone lines, Movilnet lines (state-owned mobile network), or satellite in isolated areas.

There are spoofing technologies that let malicious actors create phony cellular network transmission cells to intercept calls, potentially obtaining data. There are methods for physically intervening in fiber optics with devices placed "in the middle" between targets, and dial-up lines and the "dead network" can also be physically intercepted. All these methods require individuals within the country or possibly insiders.

Another theory involves perpetrators making hundreds or thousands of calls to the tallying center phone numbers, temporarily occupying the lines and preventing the voting machines from connecting.

However, he noted that if such techniques were employed, it doesn't necessarily mean that the transmitted data was altered due to the protective mechanisms in place.

There is concern that the CNE website's lack of publication of results by polling station prevents legitimate users from accessing the site and validating the data, as it was reported to have been subjected to denial of service attacks (DDoS) before the elections. The CNE has decided to take down or shut down its website entirely in response to these attacks.

The Venezuelan electoral system is known as one of the most secure in the world, but its complexity can make people less informed about its robustness, often leading to the emergence of far-fetched theories.

The opposition candidates, Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Corina Machado, have launched websites posting 24,000 alleged tally sheets from voting machines, claiming fraud in the Venezuelan elections.
The issue of cybersecurity and technology is at the forefront of the Venezuelan general news and politics discourse, as supporters of opposition candidates claim voter fraud, citing the need for better electoral cybersecurity measures.
In the electoral technology sphere, experts like Victor Theoktisto, a computer science professor at Simon Bolivar University, highlight the high level of security measures implemented in the Venezuelan electoral system, particularly during data transmission, which have proven effective in preventing data alteration.
Amidst controversy, President Nicola Maduro called for an investigation and clarification of the process, requesting evidence from all candidates and the National Electoral Council (CNE), while critics continue to question the legitimacy of the elections results. Concerns about the integrity of the technology used, such as voting machines and transmission systems, remain a significant point of contention in the crime-and-justice arena.
As the Venezuelan electoral system faces ongoing scrutiny, with instances like the alleged attack on the data transmission system raising questions, it is essential to address cybersecurity concerns and work towards improving the transparency of election backups, paper tallies, and the overall system's functionality to maintain faith in its integrity and credibility.