US gov’t-linked firm is source of exit poll claiming Venezuelan opposition won election
NEP has relied on the Associated Press to perform vote tabulations and has contracted with Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International to “make projections and provide exit poll analysis.”[1]
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The US has funded exit polls abroad because, state dept. officials testified, it is one of the few ways to expose and ascertain the extent of large-scale fraud.[4] Indeed, discrepancies between exit polls and the official results have been used to successfully overturn election results in Serbia, Peru, the Republic of Georgia and, in November 2004, Ukraine.[5]
Sources:
[1] NEP FAQ
[4] Ukraine’s Election: Next Steps
The United States provided funding to support independent media, provide non-partisan political party training, voter awareness and education, training for election officials and observers, and more. All of this assistance was provided on a non-partisan basis. For instance, political party training funded by the U.S. government is open to all parties on an equal basis. Our election-related assistance to Ukraine totaled approximately $13.8 million. The U.S. also funded thousands of international observers. This included the U.S. contribution funding the approximately 600-person OSCE observer mission; additional funding for another 100 observers under special agreement with the countries of Central Europe; and funding for an additional 1,000 foreign NGO representatives organized by Freedom House and the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO). In addition, some 10,000 domestic observers were organized by the Ukrainian NGO Committee of Voters of Ukraine, which receives partial support from the U.S. Government via NDI. This support represents one of the largest international observation efforts ever.
In preparation for the mandated re-run of the election on December 26, we today submitted a Congressional Notification of $3 million, as a contingency, to provide funding for election-related activities. The CN provides for up to $500,000 for OSCE election observers (including a possible central European mission of 100 people under ODIHR auspices) and up to $2.5 million to support NGO monitoring and other election-related efforts.
Beginning in February, a wide, bipartisan range of senior U.S. officials and prominent private citizens visited Ukraine carrying a strong message about the importance of a democratic election to Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration. These included Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of State Armitage, USAID Administrator Natsios, former President Bush, former Secretaries Albright and Kissinger, Dr. Brzezinski, Richard Holbrooke, Thomas Pickering, General (r.) Wesley Clark, Rep. Bereuter, Senator McCain, and of course Senator Lugar. The President asked Senator Lugar to return in November as his representative to deliver a letter to President Kuchma urging a free and fair election and to remain in Ukraine during the sensitive period immediately following the voting. He has already reported to you on that experience. We are grateful for Senator Lugar’s efforts, and have been extremely pleased at how closely the Administration and the Hill have cooperated in the run-up to the election in Ukraine.
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Impact on the Region
The crisis in Ukraine remains far from final resolution, so it is difficult to predict its long-term impact on other countries in the region. If, in the end, a democratic process prevails and there is a result that reflects the will of the Ukrainian people, it could have a potentially major impact for the development of democracy in the region. It will signal millions of people that democratic freedom is on the ascendance. This will help bolster pro-democracy NGOs, even as authoritarian governments in Belarus, parts of Central Asia, and elsewhere in Eurasia advance crackdowns on pro-democracy civil society groups. We will intensify our efforts to establish balanced cooperation with governments in these regions, recognizing that long-term stability and security arise when people enjoy freedom to participate in the civic life of their countries and fundamental human rights.
Democracy in the countries of the former Soviet Union has lately had its ups and downs. In Georgia, a “rose revolution” in 2003 unseated the government of President Shevardnadze following a fraudulent parliamentary election, and was followed in January 2004 by a presidential election that by and large did adhere to international standards. At the same time, however, there have been disturbing indications of a retreat from democracy in Russia, including flawed elections, greater control of the press, and selective prosecution of powerful business leaders thought to pose a threat. Moreover, Moscow has of late become more active in what it regards as its “near-abroad.” As I said, the Russians have taken a particularly active role in the Ukrainian election, openly throwing their support behind Prime Minister Yanukovych.
The outcome of the presidential election process in Ukraine will have an impact well beyond Ukraine’s borders. It is in the interests of everyone to see Ukraine develop into a democratic, market-oriented nation with good relations with all its neighbors and with other members of the European and Euro-Atlantic communities.
[5] Thom Hartmann: How To Take Back A Stolen Election (archived)
Instead, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (Madeleine K. Albright, Chairman) has joined up with a similar organization affiliated with the Republican Party (the International Republican Institute – John McCain, Chairman), other NGOs, and US government agencies to support the use of exit polls and statistical analyses to challenge national elections in Ukraine, Serbia, Belarus, and the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
In three of those four nations they succeeded in not only mounting a national challenge, but in reversing the outcomes of elections.
The election reversals were accomplished by funding local groups – most made up of a core of activists and college students – who worked to topple regimes that had rigged their own re-elections.
As Ian Traynor – one of the finest investigative reporters working in the world today – notes in a 26 November 2004 article in The Guardian titled “US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev,” “the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavory regimes.”
The campaign to unseat corrupt regimes is funded by groups affiliated with both the Democratic and Republican parties, Traynor notes, as well as the US State Department, the US Agency for International Development, and non-governmental organizations including George Soros’s Open Society Institute and the late Eleanor Roosevelt’s organization Freedom House (a group whose board of directors is now chaired by the notorious former CIA director R. James Woolsey).
Related Pages:
Color Revolution – Regime Change Keywords
Free, Freedom, Democracy, Democratic, Liberty, Libertad (Spanish for Freedom, commonly used in names of opposition groups in Latin America), “Pro-Democracy” – dead giveaway that they’re regime change agents. Examples: Free Burma Rangers, Freedom Fighters (Mujahideen – Yugoslav Wars, Somali Civil War, First Nagorno-Karabakh War, First Chechen War) (Afghan mujahidin, Operation Cyclone), (Free Syrian Army/FSA – Syrian Democratic Forces/SDF) – proxy fighters funded by CIA/NED/USAID/Corporate front organizations.
Civil Society, Civil Society Organizations (astroturfed CIA/NED/USAID/Corporate front organizations)
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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