Venezuela’s opposition primary results will take longer than expected because a server was blocked during the tallying of votes, according to organizers.
(Bloomberg) — Venezuela’s opposition primary results will take longer than expected because a server was blocked during the tallying of votes, according to organizers.
Jesús María Casal, the president of the primary organization committee, said the group had been prepared for potential interference and would be able to keep counting the vote in the hotly watched primary. The winner is likely to challenge socialist President Nicolás Maduro in an election that will test the country’s democratic practices.
“Once we started the process of totalizing the results, after closing voting centers, we detected that our server was blocked, which prevents us from completing the process quickly,” Casal told reporters at 10:30 p.m. local time on Sunday. “We had contingency mechanisms and we have already activated them.”
Casal declined to predict when voting figures would be available, but organizers were working late into the night to produce a tally.
Large crowds overwhelmed voting centers across Caracas during an independently organized primary in which voters struggled to identify their polling centers. Despite efforts to publicize the vote, Maduro’s government had blocked a website that informs citizens where to cast their ballot.
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Many voting centers across the country stayed open past the established 4 p.m. closing time due to long lines of Venezuelans still waiting to cast their vote. Some voters in the capital spent more than three hours in line to submit their ballots, braving the afternoon rain — and the risks that come with openly opposing a government that has brutally repressed dissidents.
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