The probability of authenticity of the electoral results in Venezuela is 1 in 100 million

The mathematician Terence Tao, winner of the Fields medal, considered the Nobel Prize in Mathematics, stated that election results in Venezuela present a extremely low probability of having occurred by chance. That is, 1 in 100 million.

In an interview with The Country, Tao noted that rounded percentages, such as 51.2%, are very unusual from a statistical point of view. In addition to the lack of a breakdown of votes by constituency.

«Let those numbers occur naturally “It has a probability of 1 in 100 million,” he explained.

Rigged elections? For Tao, it is likely

According to Tao, this suggests that the results may have been manipulated.

“The president was able to tell 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 elections were rigged,” he commented.

He also raised three possible explanations: that the elections were fair and the results were accurate, that there was manipulation or that errors were made due to incompetence. However, he ruled out the first option due to the low probability that these results were real.

«The first hypothesis is almost discardable because it is extremely unlikely that these percentages were real, so there are two possibilities: either the Venezuelan government is corrupt or incompetent. Both could explain these data,” he noted.

He also highlighted that the authorities, two months after the elections, have not published the detailed results by constituency.

The mathematician considers that The lack of transparency increases suspicions. “If it was just a mistake, they would have fixed it by now,” he said.