A lot of people don't understand the Venezuelan voting system. Its different from the American one in that we don't vote to win a certain number of delegates etc... we vote directly for what we want. If one guy gets 5 million votes, is 5 million votes you got, you don't have to deal with wining states that have the most delegates, its pretty simple.
The next time we have an election will be on 2013... then we'll choose if Chavez goes, then again we have chosen for him to go so many times that who's gonna believe he's actually going to go?
So this is how it goes... You have sign up to the CNE, that's the electoral college, in advance of course. You get assigned to the one voting place closer to your residence, but I haven't changed residences since I moved to this building so I get to vote half way across the city, so for me going to vote is great. I run into old friends and acquaintances, eat at my old fav. bakery, etc... But voting in this country is far less friendlier than this description.
Here's what happens... Voters are in no way distributed fairly. Some voting places have over 5000 voters. Mine is one of them.
What that means is that I have to get up at 4 am and get there to vote if I want to be out of there before noon.
Damn you Skype Files for keeping me awake, I overslept.
We have automated machines and safe measures... I think we may have way too many. First, whenever you check yourself on the list, the NATIONAL GUARD yes, not a civilian checks it out and intimidates you because they're armed with AK47's. Then you go and stay in line, for as long as you can imagine since with your luck all the old people will be assigned to your table.
You get 1 machine for table and 1 table for 500 voters. Average time for voting is 6 minutes. You do the math.
So then after you're called in groups of five you go through the fingerprint scan... yeah, that... if it doesn't match... you might be stuck there until they decide to let you through. If you're lucky, then you go an get your position on the voting books and give your ID to the president of the table, she explains the shiz to you and then you go to the machine... and punch the buttons to get your vote, then you might get errors, you pick one and the print out tells you you voted for another, etc etc etc and these things always go overlooked... but at the end deal or no deal, you have to dunk your pinky on an ungreasing solution and then into this deep radioactive purple that makes your skin itchy... yeah this is the ultimate solution of venezuelans to prevent people voting twice or more.
They may not trust computers, or ballots, they trust nuclear ink that smells like preschool classes in the afternoon.
So if you survive the unhappy masses in line, the broken machines and the faulty technicians, the fighting over people thinking the military is out to violate their rights, the people being suspicious of everything, the Chavists going by with loud music and chanting that Chavez is going to win again, even though Chavez is not running for anything, his party is, but leave it to its followers to be as dumb as not to realize that you have to vote for effective authorities, not an extinct ideal of a madman. That... and pray that it didn't rain, because the mud might be out to get you.
So if you survive this, you go home, with your stained falange, and you sit in front of the TV to wait for the electoral college to tell you at 4:30 pm that people have to remain calm, cause even though no one is saying anything, they anticipate that people will get mad, Live and learn.
See the thing with voting in this country is that, either way, we don't trust authorities, but we want to believe; We feel defeated at fighting so much for a better future, without such different realities and division, and of course without Chavez, and not getting any forward... but still, deep down we think that maybe there is hope. At the end, after almost 10 years of disguised dictatorship and hurt... We don't want to give up on a miracle.
What do you know... Maybe all Venezuelans are Philes.
