What specific evidence did the opposition publish after the 2024 Venezuelan election, and who verified it?
Executive summary
The opposition published scanned precinct-level tally sheets (actas) and a consolidated dataset of results that it said covered more than 80% of polling stations, claiming those documents showed Edmundo González won by a large margin; multiple independent analyses — including major news organizations, academic forensic analysts, and some electoral-observer groups — reviewed and largely corroborated the opposition’s published tallies, while the Maduro government and state institutions rejected the material as fabricated [1] [2] [3] [4]. The dispute turned on access to the official disaggregated CNE data (which the CNE did not publish), competing claims about authenticity, and independent forensic and journalistic checks that found no evidence the opposition’s sample was systematically falsified [5] [6] [7].
1. What exactly the opposition published: scanned ‘actas’ and a national roll-up
Within days of the July 28 vote the opposition posted an online repository containing digital scans and photographed copies of voting tally sheets (actas de escrutinio) collected by party poll watchers from polling stations across the country, together with a digitized dataset that aggregated those precinct-level numbers into a nationwide tally; the opposition’s material reportedly covered over 80% (some accounts say up to ~85%) of voting machines and more than 30,000 polling stations and was the basis for its claim that González had roughly two-thirds of the vote [1] [3] [8] [9].
2. How the materials were gathered and why they matter
The actas are the official paper trail generated by Venezuela’s electronic voting system — distinct documents that record the vote totals for each precinct and that, by law, party poll watchers are entitled to receive — and the opposition mobilized tens of thousands of volunteers to photograph, scan and upload those sheets on election night and in the days after as part of a coordinated operation to create an independent record of returns [1] [2] [3].
3. Who examined and verified the opposition’s publication
At least four independent analyses are repeatedly cited as having reviewed and found the opposition’s published tallies credible: investigative and data analyses by the Associated Press and The Washington Post, a verification by Colombia’s Misión de Observación Electoral, and statistical forensic analysis by Walter Mebane Jr., an election-forensics scholar at the University of Michigan; academic assessments such as Dorothy Kronick’s work also concluded the opposition data “almost certainly reflects actual votes cast” and broader U.S. and foreign-government statements concluded the evidence showed González won [2] [1] [7] [5] [10].
4. What those verifications actually said — and their limits
The verifications varied in method: newsrooms compared and sampled thousands of actas against the opposition dataset and found internal consistency and corroborating photographs and videos from poll locations; forensic statisticians applied methods to detect signs of incremental or systematic manipulation and reported no evidence of the kind of fraud that would be expected if the published actas were invented or massively altered; still, several observers and organizations (for example, the Carter Center) stressed they could not independently certify the CNE-declared result because the electoral council had not published the official disaggregated precinct data that would allow a fully authoritative reconciliation [1] [7] [9].
5. The government’s counterclaims and judicial actions
The Maduro government and some state-aligned institutions rejected the opposition’s dataset, accusing opponents of forgery and alleging (without evidence, according to reporting) cyberattacks and foreign interference to justify delays and the absence of detailed CNE disclosure; courts later asserted the tally sheets were falsified and prosecutors opened investigations and arrests against opposition figures — a competing narrative that the independent verifiers found unsubstantiated in their technical examinations [4] [7] [1].
6. What this leaves unresolved
Independent analyses lent credence to the opposition’s actas as authentic and representative, prompting several governments to recognize González as the winner, but none of those external checks replaced a formal, transparent release of the CNE’s official precinct-level database; absent that full official disclosure, debates over legal recognition, judicial claims of fraud, and the political consequences remained contested despite strong corroboration of the opposition’s published evidence [5] [6] [9].