Latest Referendum Results Give “Yes” Vote Greater Margin of Victory

February 18, 2009 (venezuelanalysis.com)—With 99.75% of the votes counted, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) released the latest results from Sunday’s constitutional amendment referendum yesterday, which show the “Yes” vote increasing its victory from 54.33% to 54.86% of the vote, relative to the first preliminary result that was released a few hours after polls closed.

This means that 6,319,636 Venezuelan citizens voted in favor of amending Venezuela’s constitution to eliminate the two-term limit on all elected offices, and 5,198,006 voted against the proposal.

Compared to the first announced results, when 94% of the ballots had been counted, this increases the margin of difference between the two sides by a full percentage point, to nearly ten.

Tibisay Lucena, the Electoral Council (CNE) President, also stated that abstention was even lower than first announced, at 30.1% of registered voters, making this one of the most attended electoral events of the past ten years. Only the 2006 presidential election had a higher participation rate, at 74.7%.

Out of about 16 million registered voters, 11,724,224 participated in Sunday’s referendum.