The Carter Center, an Atlanta-based NGO founded in 1982 by former US president Jimmy Carter, has released its final assessment regarding Venezuela’s disputed presidential election held on July 28, 2024, concluding that the process failed to meet international electoral standards.

The report published on February 17 states that the official results, which saw incumbent President Nicolas Maduro winning a third term in office amid widespread fraud allegations, lack transparency and cannot be independently verified as democratic.

The organisation, which was invited by the regime-aligned National Electoral Council (CNE) to observe the elections, also highlighted significant irregularities in media coverage that "throughout the campaign heavily favoured the incumbent candidate," voter registration, the legal framework, and campaign financing, among other things.

It noted that the CNE did not disclose electronic voting data or provide paper records from polling stations, raising concerns about result manipulation. 

The report describes these omissions as a fundamental breach of electoral integrity.

"The CNE withheld electronic records from voting tables and did not release the paper copies it received from each station," the Carter Center stated.

"Beyond the lack of transparency in announcing the results and the apparent falsification of data, Venezuelan authorities failed to uphold essential conditions for a democratic process."

Observers monitored multiple aspects of the election, including technical preparations, campaign activities, voter education, and election-day operations at 68 locations across four states. 

However, the report pointed out that the absence of detailed results prevented independent verification of the outcome. 

It also noted that post-election audits, which could have addressed claims of cyberattacks, were cancelled by the electoral authorities, further undermining confidence in the process.

In its final report, the Carter Center validated the authenticity of electoral records released by Venezuela’s opposition, asserting that the data conclusively indicate an irreversible victory for opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia.

Venezuela's electoral authorities and opposition groups have presented sharply conflicting results from last year's presidential election, deepening the political crisis in the oil-rich nation.

The CNE declared incumbent President Nicolás Maduro the winner with 51.21% of votes against Edmundo González's 44.2%. But opposition activists, citing data from more than 83% of independently collected voting tallies, claimed González won with 67% compared to Maduro's 30%, presenting a significant 21-point discrepancy in Maduro's reported victory margin.

Many regional and international actors, including former Chavista allies such as Brazil and Colombia, have repeatedly questioned Maduro's victory and called for Venezuelan's National Electoral Council (CNE) to publish detailed voting records to back up the official results, but the government-controlled body has refused to do so.

This ultimately led Brazil to veto Venezuela's bid to join the BRICS group in November during the bloc's summit in Kazan, Russia.