July, 29 2024, 07:53am EDT
![National Lawyers Guild (NLG)](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012666/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Suzanne Adely suzanne.adely@gmail.com
Ken Montenegro kmontenegro@comeuppance.net
National Lawyers Guild electoral observers praise fairness, transparency of Venezuelan election process; condemn the U.S. backed opposition’s refusal to accept the outcome of democratic election
CARACAS, Venezuela
A delegation of five election observers from the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) monitored the presidential elections in Venezuela that took place on July 28, 2024. The delegation observed a transparent, fair voting process with scrupulous attention to legitimacy, access to the polls, and pluralism.
Despite the soundness of the electoral process, the U.S. backed opposition, with support from an anti-Maduro western press, has refused to accept the results, undermining the stability of Venezuela’s democracy. The president of the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE), Elvis Amoroso, called upon the attorney general to investigate the attacks on the electoral transmission system. The delegation strongly condemns these attacks on the electoral system as well as the role of the US in undermining the democratic process.
The official election results were announced shortly after 12 am on July 29: President Nicolas Maduro has been re-elected with a 51.2% share of the vote; his leading challenger, Edmundo Gonzales, took 44.2% of the vote, with turnout approximately 59% throughout the country with a voting electorate of over 21.3 million people.
The delegation visited several polling sites in Caracas and La Guaira and shared notes and information with the 910 electoral observers present from 95 countries and many organizations, including the Carter Center, the United Nations, the African Union and the Latin American Council of Electoral Experts (CEELA).
“The Venezuelan elections today were not only fair and transparent but also represented an example of popular civic participation. Their successful outcome is a triumph for the Venezuelan people, especially considering the level of US interference and attempted sabotage of the democratic process, particularly through sanctions and coercive economic measures aimed at producing ‘regime change’ in Venezuela,” said Suzanne Adely, President of the NLG and a member of the delegation.
During the delegation’s visits to polling sites, members spoke freely with voters, including supporters of both the government and the opposition. We found that voters across the board expressed strong confidence in the electoral system and did not note any problems or hindrances to casting their ballots.
The electoral system was highly transparent and well-facilitated, overseen by the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE), the fifth branch of the Venezuelan government, which manages the electoral process. The voting system in Venezuela, dubbed “the best in the world” by former US President Jimmy Carter, ensures both access to the polls and clear identification of voters, promoting a secure system that inspires confidence in the Venezuelan public. Notably, Venezuelans cast both an electronic vote and a printed paper ballot in order to verify electoral totals, a check that is performed automatically at 54% of polling locations, chosen at random. The machines and electoral processes functioned properly at each of the polling sites visited by the delegation.
The high level of security at the polls is combined with a commitment to accessibility for all Venezuelan citizens, the delegation observed. People with disabilities, small children and the elderly may access their polling station through fast-track lines. For people with special needs who require physical assistance to cast their votes, there is also a system called “assisted voting” that allows voters to either bring a family member or the president of the voting station into the voting booth to assist with the process, and the delegation witnessed two examples of assisted voting throughout the day.
Any difficulties that we witnessed at the polls were normal and routine in all electoral systems. At the majority of polling sites we visited, wait times were relatively low (under 5 minutes) throughout the day, although there were surges in turnout leading to longer waits at times. Those with special needs were accommodated through a fast-track line. Longer and shorter wait times at the polls took place across neighborhoods and, when there were longer lines, the delegation did not witness any participants that decided not to vote due to waits.
The delegation underlined its absolute rejection of claims of fraud being promulgated by the U.S backed opposition, right wing forces in the region including the Lima group, U.S. officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Western media.
The delegation has produced a brief and thorough report (forthcoming at nlginternational.org) expanding on the election process as well as attempts to interfere by the opposition, the United States government and Western media. “It's imperative that we act in solidarity to protect democracy and the sovereignty of this Caribbean nation, reject U.S. imperialist intervention in Venezuela, and call for an end to US sanctions and blockades,” said Adely.
The National Lawyers Guild has previously monitored Venezuelan elections in 2021, 2015 and 2013, and co-organized a fact-finding trip in 2023 to monitor the effects of sanctions on the country.
The National Lawyers Guild, whose membership includes lawyers, legal workers, jailhouse lawyers, and law students, was formed in 1937 as the United States’ first racially-integrated bar association to advocate for the protection of constitutional, human and civil rights.
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) works to promote human rights and the rights of ecosystems over property interests. It was founded in 1937 as the first national, racially-integrated bar association in the U.S.
(212) 679-5100LATEST NEWS
'Where Have All the Butterflies Gone?' Low Count Portends Sad Future for Biodiversity
"The lack of butterflies this year is a warning sign to us all," the director of a U.K. wildlife charity said. "Nature is sounding the alarm and we must listen."
Jul 29, 2024
A U.K. conservation charity sounded the alarm on Monday after a yearly butterfly count turned up a record low number of butterflies so far.
Participants in the count, which runs through August 4, are reporting a little more than half the number of butterflies as they did by this time in 2023, Butterfly Conservation said.
"The lack of butterflies this year is a warning sign to us all," the charity's director of conservation Dan Hoare said in a blog post. "Nature is sounding the alarm, and we must listen. Butterflies are a key indicator species. When they are in trouble we know the wider environment is in trouble too."
"So far this summer, I have not seen a single butterfly alight on the flowers. Desperate times."
The low numbers are one example of how the climate crisis exacerbates biodiversity loss. Butterfly numbers have plummeted by 80% in the U.K. since the 1970s, a decline driven by the climate emergency as well as habitat destruction and pesticide use. This year, the country experienced an abnormally wet, windy spring and a cooler than average summer.
"Butterflies need some warm and dry conditions to be able to fly around and mate," Hoare explained. "If the weather doesn't allow for this there will be fewer opportunities to breed, and the lack of butterflies now is likely the knock-on effect of our very dreary spring and early summer."
The climate emergency increases rainfall because warmer air holds more moisture. Spring 2024 was the U.K.'s sixth wettest on record and the wettest overall since 1986, according toThe Guardian. March, April, and May saw almost a third more rainfall than usual for those months.
The heavy rain also followed a drought in 2022 that put a different kind of pressure on butterfly populations by decreasing the number of plants that caterpillars need to eat. The green-veined white and the ringlet species were especially hard hit and have yet to recover.
"Never known a year like it," author and climate scientist Bill McGuire wrote of 2024. "We have two huge buddleia 'butterfly bushes' that are normally swarming with at least half a dozen species. So far this summer, I have not seen a single butterfly alight on the flowers. Desperate times."
Since the count began on July 11, the number of butterflies reported in the U.K. is the lowest in the count's 14-year history, but there is still a chance that warmer, drier weather could turn things around. However, even if it doesn't, Hoare called for more citizen scientists to participate in the count by spending 15 minutes noting any butterflies and moths they see in a specific area and recording their totals on the website or via app.
"People are telling us that they aren't seeing butterflies, but simply telling us is not enough; we need everyone to record what they are or aren't seeing by doing a Big Butterfly Count as this will give us the evidence we need to take vital action to conserve our butterfly species," Hoare said.
The U.K.'s butterfly decline is not the only recent example of climate extremes harming wildlife. Extreme wildfires in Australia in 2019 and 2020 killed at least 1 billion animals, while a heatwave in Mexico this spring prompted howler monkeys to drop dead out of trees. In 2023 and 2024, the world's coral reefs suffered their fourth mass bleaching event.
The news of the butterflies' decline also follows a week that saw the four hottest days on record globally. 2023 was the hottest year in the past 125,000, and 2024 is expected by many scientists to surpass it. Every month since June 2023 has been the hottest of its kind on record and has seen average temperatures at or above 1.5°C higher than preindustrial levels, the more ambitious temperature goal enshrined in the Paris agreement.
"The extreme events that we are now experiencing are indications of the weakening resilience of these systems," Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, toldThe Washington Post on Saturday. "We cannot risk pushing this any further."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Health Ministry Declares Gaza a 'Polio Epidemic Zone'
"When will the world act to stop Israel's genocidal campaign?" asked one advocacy group in response to the designation.
Jul 29, 2024
Health officials in the besieged Gaza Strip declared a polio epidemic on Monday and attributed the crisis to "brutal Israeli aggression," citing the large-scale destruction of water sanitation and waste management infrastructure.
In a statement, Gaza's Ministry of Health said that the Palestinian enclave is now a "polio epidemic zone" and urged immediate international action to end Israel's assault and "find radical solutions" to the territory's lack of clean water, hygiene products, and sanitation facilities.
The crisis, according to the health ministry, poses a threat to Gaza as well as neighboring countries and marks "a setback for the global polio eradication program."
While a sweeping vaccination campaign eliminated wild poliovirus from Gaza more than two decades ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week that poliovirus had been identified in sewage samples in six locations in the enclave, where most of the population is displaced and attempting to survive in areas surrounded by waste and rotting garbage.
In a recent report, the global humanitarian group Oxfam described such conditions as "ripe for the outbreak of epidemics."
Gaza is now a polio epidemic zone. When will the world act to stop Israel's genocidal campaign? https://t.co/XmrEHJGajk
— Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (@CJPME) July 29, 2024
The WHO said last week that it would send more than a million polio vaccines to Gaza following the discovery of poliovirus inside the occupied territory.
The United Nations agency noted that while 99% of children in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip received their third dose of the polio vaccine in 2022, the innoculation rate fell to 89% last year as many newborns were not vaccinated due to what WHO-Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described as "the decimation of the health system" by Israeli forces.
"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Tedros wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian last week. "Children under five are at risk, and especially infants under two because many have not been vaccinated over the nine months of conflict."
"While immediate efforts to reach every child with polio vaccines are now being put into motion," he added, "ultimately, a cease-fire and free-flowing aid are the only definite ways to protect people and prevent an explosive outbreak."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Iowa's Six-Week Abortion Ban Called 'Cruel Future' GOP Want for Entire Nation
Denouncing "extremist Republicans," EMILY's List says the new state law exemplifies why voters "have to stop them at the ballot box this November."
Jul 29, 2024
As Iowa's six-week abortion ban took effect on Monday after a June ruling by the state Supreme Court, reproductive rights advocates pointed to the law as the latest proof of the importance of opposing anti-choice Republicans in the November elections.
"Today, people in Iowa woke up to the unfortunate reality that their reproductive rights have been ripped away," said NextGen America. "They're already fleeing the state for care. In November, abortion is on the ballot. Vote on it."
Also blasting "Iowa's near-total draconian abortion ban," EMILY's List warned: "This is the cruel future that extremist Republicans want for our country. We have to stop them at the ballot box this November."
Reproductive freedom has been a key issue at all levels of U.S. politics this election cycle. President Joe Biden made abortion rights a top focus of his 2024 campaign, which Vice President Kamala Harris has continued since he dropped out and she became the presumed Democratic nominee to face former Republican President Donald Trump this fall.
Although Trump has at times tried to distance himself from state legislators' recent attacks on reproductive rights, he has also bragged about appointing half of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who reversedRoe v. Wade—and both his selection of his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), and the latest Republican Party platform have stoked fresh fears about the GOP's plans for abortion at the national level.
Harris on Monday openly blamed the Republican presidential candidate for the new state ban, saying on social media: "This morning, more than 1.5 million women in Iowa woke up with fewer rights than they had last night because of another Trump abortion ban. In November, we will stop Trump's extreme abortion bans at the ballot box."
The vice president also shared a video message and her campaign on Monday launched a "Fight for Reproductive Freedom" week of action, which features dozens of planned events across battleground states.
More than 1 in 3 women of reproductive age in America now live in a state with a Trump abortion ban.
When I am President of the United States, I will sign a law restoring and protecting reproductive freedom in every state. pic.twitter.com/ka8f8zI145
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 29, 2024
Iowa's new law prohibits most abortion care after cardiac activity can be detected—supporters of such bans use the medically misleading term "fetal heartbeat"—which is usually around six weeks, before many people know they are pregnant. The ban has limited exceptions that critics warn are ineffective.
The state's Republican lawmakers initially passed a similar ban in 2018, though reproductive rights advocates won their legal battle to block it. However, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling in 2022, Iowa legislators last year tried to revive the old ban before ultimately passing the one that took effect Monday.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the ACLU of Iowa challenged the new ban on behalf of a Planned Parenthood North Central States subsidiary, the Emma Goldman Clinic, and Dr. Sarah Traxler, but the Iowa Supreme Court upheld it 4-3.
"To say the last few weeks have been hard is an understatement," Kristina Remus, a Planned Parenthood patient services associate, toldThe 19th on Friday. "People are confused and seeking clarification. And a lot of patients are unaware that there is a law banning abortion at about six weeks before many people know that they're pregnant set to take effect so soon on Monday. We are having extremely difficult conversations in my department with patients."
Planned Parenthood Action said on social media Monday: "Iowa's six-week ban marks the 22nd state that has banned some or all abortions. We know how dangerous this ban will be for Iowans, but we will not stop fighting for your right to abortion care."
Iowa Abortion Access Fund posted a similar message, saying: "We are heartbroken by this ban. It will affect thousands of Iowans but, as all abortion bans do, it will disproportionately affect those in marginalized communities, including communities of color, those in the LGBTQ community, lower-income individuals, and individuals living in rural areas."
"While this ban is disheartening, please know we are still here for you. We have partnered with the Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF) to provide comprehensive, wraparound support for Iowans in need of abortion care," the group continued, sharing the Illinois helpline. "Despite this gross government overreach, we will continue to fundraise. We will continue to advocate for abortion access and reproductive freedom for all. And we will continue to be here for you."
Illinois has seen a flood of "healthcare refugees" as surrounding states have tightened abortion restrictions in the wake of Dobbs. Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, who is on the short list of Harris' potential vice presidential candidate picks, declared Monday that "here in Illinois, we will welcome our Iowan neighbors for reproductive freedom and whatever care they need. Please know—as you work to maneuver around this dangerous and unjust law—we are here for you."
In neighboring Wisconsin, there is also an ongoing battle over abortion rights. The state Supreme Court has agreed to take up two related cases, and in the meantime, Planned Parenthood has resumed providing abortion care in its clinics there. Like Harris, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on Monday also blamed Trump and his "radical agenda" for Iowa's new law, highlighting that the Republican "promised to overturn Roe v. Wade, and called abortion bans like Iowa's 'beautiful.'"
"We will continue fighting to protect reproductive freedom in Wisconsin, but the only way to stop Donald Trump and JD Vance, Project 2025, and their plan to ban abortion in all 50 states is to elect Kamala Harris," Evers argued. "Kamala Harris will sign a federal law to restore reproductive freedom and make sure every woman in America has access to the reproductive healthcare they need and deserve."
While passing federal pro-choice legislation would almost certainly require Democrats to control not only the White House but also both chambers of Congress, the Democratic National Committee also directed attention to the presidential contest, with DNC spokesperson Stephanie Justice saying Monday that "today is a dark day for Iowa, the Midwest, and the country, and if Trump wins election again, this will be a harbinger of what's to come for the entire nation."
"Trump's Project 2025 will ban abortion nationwide and punish women who seek reproductive care," Justice added. "However, this does not have to be our future. Women in Iowa and across the nation are fed up and will rise up and vote against Donald Trump and JD Vance's plan to rip away our reproductive rights."
Meanwhile, Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) interim communications director Sam Paisley on Monday stressed the importance of electing supporters of reproductive freedom to state offices.
"Iowa Republicans have officially made their state one of the most extreme when it comes to restricting reproductive freedom, flying in the face of the majority of Iowans who support abortion access," Paisely said. "Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, GOP state legislatures have made these bans a top priority, and they show no sign of letting up."
"The time is now for Democrats to turn their attention to state legislatures where Republicans are leveraging power to pass an extreme agenda that rips up fundamental freedoms," she added. "The DLCC will continue to hold the GOP in the states accountable as they compromise the healthcare of their constituents."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular