Long story short, there is no solid dick. Nobody knows what is going on in the Venezuelan elections outside of maybe the judicial branch, and even they are taking their time on confirmation.

That being said, it doesn't matter if you think there is fraud or not, we are literally talking about media coming from a country (the U.S.) that tried to do a coup less than 5 years ago and then maintained a government in exile. Observably and historically! As such you cannot take anything the mainstream media, or any of their downstream puppets who get most of their information from those sources, seriously.

Not that it matters. Our opinions in the U.S. have no actual bearing on the matter, in fact, they are equal to your buddy who is Venezuelan, because if intervention is called for, correctly or incorrectly, it's not their ass that will be in the meat grinder. Even if they have family there, their actual means of production stakes are essentially the same as yours.

I'd be more critical of the elections if leftist activists and reporters were reporting that there was something off going on, but that isn't the case at all. People like Alan MacLeod, Eugene Puryear and Rania Khalek among others have been reporting the contrary.

Yeah, I also got shaken a little bit ngl. I really don't know shit and can't say much about the reality on the ground in the country, and every friend I have in the liberal human rights/charity sphere is always talking about the humanitarian crisis etc. etc. I want to chalk it up to neolib propaganda exaggerating the effects of US enforced sanctions, but there probably are mistakes coming from the current Chavista leadership if the crisis has deepened as profoundly as I'm constantly being told.

One thing I picked up on was the Carter Center not being given access to verify the results this time around but that they had every time before. I'm trying to get a look at some of their old reports to see what they had said about the past, but any comrades have an idea of why this relationship would have been broken? I assume it's lib institution (it's named after Carter....), but a break in such a historical relationship is worthy of note to me.

Far from an expert here, but imo you only need to look at the media coverage itself to at least see that the idea of a huge popular upswell is bunk. I've been scouring the reportage for a long shot of these protests, and nothing. How about the opposition figures in front of a crowd? Again, nothing. It's always a handful of goons in a conference room. Meanwhile, Maduro still demonstrably has a huge social base, going by the attendance at rallies, official support from social orgs etc.

There have almost certainly been irregularities dgmw, but, as has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the election was hopelessly compromised from the get go. It's just not possible to have 'free and fair' elections under circumstances such as this.

With regard to other forms of suppression e.g. Machado's disqualification, well... I mean she's openly calling for foreign intervention, is collaborating with hostile state actors, and she's a fucking nazi.

If liberal democracy worked as advertised, the opposition would have conceded to a new political consensus by now, and perhaps even be back in power. They could just say, "ok, the nationalized oil stays. Now, why not let us manage it instead?" But they have not ceded an inch on privatisations, and they won't either. Liberal democracy demands that the complete dismantling of the meagre gains of chavismo be on the table at every election.

Maybe it's just me but if there are Leftists who initially took power with popular support, mobilized popular support to prevent coups multiple times, and then continue to keep fascists at bay through some electoral fraud in order to maintain power, is that so bad?

I feel like "democracy" brainworms is something I've been working on myself and, in cases like these, what does it matter if in a given election a leftist Party doesn't win majority? Most of the time, maybe, Leftists won't win majority until they finally take power by force. It doesn't mean they shouldn't take power to do better for the people. In Venezuela, they are currently severely limited and impaired by the US sanctions but it's still a better existence than under capitalist coup conspirators.I didn't watch the video but I'm sure people in Venezuela are struggling right now and this may be why Maduro is less popular, but in my opinion it's mostly the fault of the US. If Maduro can stay in power to maintain the revolution and hopefully turn things around, then that's good even if there was a little electoral fraud.

That being said, I don't think nor know if there was any.

Uncritical support to the Bolivarian Revolution.