Elections in Venezuela: How technology and open data have defended democracy

Last January of this year 2024, the year in which more people in history have been called to the polls, it began with a warning: the World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2024 He said the biggest short-term risk came from misinformation, fueled by the potential of artificial intelligence (AI).

In a world plagued by global wars and severe climate crises, disinformation posed the greatest risk of escalating global conflict. It sounded exaggerated, and perhaps it is. We are now two-thirds of the way through 2024 and there has yet to be evidence that AI has decisively manipulated an election. And there is some good news: voters seem to be learning quickly, and there are new tools to deal with disinformation.

The case of the venezuelan presidential election could give evidence of this. There, technology has been playing a positive role for democracy. Six weeks after the elections, without the Government of Nicolás Maduro releasing the sequestered electoral results, The only verified electoral data is that made public by the opposition.

Initially, the campaign command of Edmundo González Urrutia and María Corina Machado released scanned copies of the minutes through a linkhours after the first official electoral report. But four days later, after several days of attacks by Maduro and other senior government officials against González and Machado, the public was given direct access to the databases. The data showed a 67 to 30 in favor of the opposition, and a difference of 4 million votes.

Multiple audits by independent entities

The open data provided by the winning team after the election day of July 28 allowed for multiple audits by more than a dozen independent entities and academics from different parts of the world.

In addition to technical reports from international observers such as the Carter Center and the United Nations Panel of Expertsthe prestigious Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) Colombia’s government certified the coherence of the data provided by the opposition command. Spanish media outlets and others like The New York Times either The Washington Post.

On the other hand, an exhaustive analysis of data from the agency Associated Press certified that candidate Edmundo González Urrutia had “obtained significantly more votes in Sunday’s elections than the government has acknowledged.” The Argentine newspaper went one step further The Nationwhich developed a collaborative map which allowed users to join the verification and add missing data.

On the academic level, the project Altavista implemented a quick count methodology in contexts with limited electoral integrity, a euphemism for rigged elections. Dorothy Kronick, from the University of Berkleywrote about the performance of the Venezuelan electoral system in previous elections, confirming the validity of the data published by the opposition. Researcher Leonardo Maldonado investigates the relationship between night luminosity and votes in favor of Edmundo González Urrutia.

Another work, by the professor of the University of Puerto Rico Jose Luis Pericchimade the information available for 100% of the tables.

Special attention deserves the work of Professor Walter Mebane Jr.from the Departments of Political Science and Statistics at the University of Michigan, United States, and an expert in detecting electoral fraud. He has conducted forensic analysis of the results of several presidential elections; including those of Turkey in 2023, Kenya and the Philippines in 2022, Peru in 2021 and Iran in 2009. Mebane concludes that there are no fraudulent or lost votes among González’s votes and goes on to compare the data with that of other recent elections in Venezuela, which have more “forensic fraudulent votes”.

Perhaps even more interesting were the numerous citizen audits that the open data. There were independent initiatives that worked from the released data. Since political scientists and designers using the data to graph the choice or allowing any user to perform searches by words in the 25,000 scanned records.

Another network user offers geolocated interactive visualization. Following the official announcement that the delays in the publication of results were due to an alleged attack from North Macedoniaengineer Giuseppe Gangi, from Barcelona, ​​designed a website called, precisely, North Macedonia. It offers detailed results for many search elements, and collaboratively included videos of results announced from more than 350 polling stations that coincided closely with the public records.

What González and Machado’s team did sets a very important precedent in the electoral dynamics of the world: releasing the data makes wonderful things happen and makes many people, in many places, interpret the results and defend their votes.

AI-generated presenters

As for media coverage of elections, there is also positive news regarding the support that technology can provide to the free flow of information for democracy. A media alliance in Venezuela designed a “The Girl and the Breadwinner”two AI-created newscasters who narrate real news, as a way to anonymize and protect journalists from repression. The use of AI-generated avatars is an important innovation for the protection of journalists covering information that may be sensitive to those in power.

Both innovations point out that technology can play in favour of democracy, contrary to what has been heard most often: that AI and technology are its enemies. The main argument is that of an “information apocalypse” and arises from alarmist voices that can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies.

It does not mean that there has not been misinformation during the process. Complutense Observatory of Disinformation observed numerous cases of electoral disinformation as early as the opposition primaries held in 2023. Numerous incidents of disinformation were denied by the fact checkers (verifiers). One particularly serious one was that of an Armed Forces commander who shared screenshots of a manipulated video of María Corina. The screenshots showed a scratched blackboard where it seemed that Machado had proposed eliminating the Armed Forces.

On the side of the ruling party, there was abundant use of pseudo-media that published pseudo-surveys with a lot of investment in cyber-advertising. Artificial intelligence was also used for campaign purposes in jingles (advertising songs) or simulating Maduro’s voice.

The cost of creating and distributing deepfakes (videos with fake images) has become extremely cheap, just when the largest electoral cycle in history is taking place. This has led to great concern and the appearance of many doomsayers. However, and while it is true that the deepfakes are among the most dangerous forms of media manipulation in election campaigns – they contribute to reinforcing the feeling of uncertainty among citizens and negatively affect the information environment – ​​the ability of the elector to discern is often underestimated.

A study of Mateusz Labuz and Christopher Nehring which analyzed the use of deepfakes in elections in 11 countries in 2023 concluded that none of the cases in which they were used in the context of elections had a decisive impact.

Citizens learn quickly and technology allows for the massification of citizen auditing. Elections can become a crash course in detecting falsehoods and the Venezuelan case confirms the idea that technology can be a fundamental ally of democracy. It is still too early to know what will end up happening in Venezuela. More than an electoral campaign, a social movement is underway to rescue freedom. There was a voting process that people took ownership of, denoting the persistence of a vigorous democratic culture in the country. Technology has been key in helping to articulate and create social capital, facilitating democratic coordination and cooperation.

Carmen Beatriz FernandezProfessor of Political Communication at UNAV, IESA and Pforzheim, University of Navarra

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original.