UPDATE 11:21: CEPR press release:

Chávez Re-Election Continues Trend of Left Governments Re-elected in South America

Economic Growth, Expansion of Welfare State Likely to Continue for Many Years

For Immediate Release: October 7, 2012

 

Washington, D.C.- Hugo Chávez’ re-election to another 6-year term shows that Venezuela, like the rest of South America, prefers governments of the left that have improved living standards and greatly reduced poverty and inequality, said Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, D.C.

“Chávez is often portrayed as though he were from Mars, but really the similarities between what he has done and what his neighboring left governments have done are much greater than the differences,” said Weisbrot. 

Contrary to many press reports, the vote was not close, as CEPR had predicted it would not be.

[More here.]

UPDATE 11:04: Henrique Capriles now making concession speech.

UPDATE 10:41: Official results: With 81 percent voter participation, Chavez - 54.43 percent; Capriles - 44.47 percent of the vote. (Remaining going to minor candidates.)

UPDATE 10:34 PM: RESULTS BEING ANNOUNCED NOW, HERE.

UPDATE 10:00 PM: Election monitors await the announcement of official results:

UPDATE 9:55 PM: An election monitor in Tachira state reports:

turnout here approached 90%, a tribute both to the CNE's preparation and organization, the dedication of the civil servants who spent long hours at the stations and, most important, to the Venezuelan people who are actively engaged in who leads their government. Despite the huge numbers, and the early difficulties with long lines and a couple of malfunctioning machines, no one reported any significant problems or concerns about the security of the process.

UPDATE 9:49 PM: An election monitor in Zulia state reports:

in Maracaibo [at] Unidad Educativa Nacional Privada Nuestra Senora del Pilar with 14 mesas and 7482 voters.  This is our largest voting place. ...but was almost empty with vote at 70- 84%. Only minor problems with one machine eating paper receipts; one could be read the other one could not. All quiet.

X vs x with 4 null were results 388 voters 433 entitled to vote. They are now doing paperwork. The null votes were because people pressed the vote button without first pressing the candidate button. Pulling ballots out one at a time and reading them off while another woman is writing results on large form.

UPDATE 9:27 PM: An election monitor reports:

Just spent almost 2 hours at a school in Pq Altagracia, a few blocks from the Presidential palace, witnessing the closing of two mesas and audit (citizens' verification) of one. To ensure all the electronic votes exactly match the paper receipts reviewed by the voters and deposited in the boxes, a random selection of 54% of the 39,000 machines are audited in an open process with witnesses from both parties and, in our case, a group of 15-20 international acompañantes.

Venezuela has "fusion" voting, where a single candidate can run for any number of parties. Chavez is running for 12 parties, Capriles for 19. When you vote you press a picture of your candidate in the box of the party you support.
...

Right now our bus is taking us down streets packed w Chavistas blowing horns, setting off firecrackers and shouting.

We're on our way the CNE headquarters to hear Tibisay Lucena announce the results. Probably we'll be there for several hours.

UPDATE 9:20 PM: Some Venezuela observers are noting that Chavez campaign head Jorge Rodriguez apparently predicted the early release of an exit poll, via the ABC newspaper in Spain, that would show Capriles in the lead, and thereby give the opposition the pretext to claim fraud if the results do not turn out that way. As we have already noted, ABC ran such a story earlier today.

Deutsche Press Agentur reported Rodriguez's prediction on October 2. (H/T to Lee Brown of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign).

 

The Washington Post once again reminded readers why so many people are praying for the day that the paper shuts its door. Its lead editorial touted the September jobs report as though this was great cause for celebration.

The piece begins by saying that President Obama asked to be evaluated based on the economy's performance, it then tells us:

"Friday’s employment report gave Mr. Obama a reason to crow. Having hit a high of 10 percent in October 2009, the jobless rate fell in September to 7.8 percent, the level it was when Mr. Obama took office amid a historic wave of job losses. More important, it fell even as the labor force grew; previous rate declines partly reflected worker discouragement. The percentage of adults with a job rose from 58.3 percent to 58.7 percent, wages by 0.3 percent."

Huh? It took us almost 4 years to get to an unemployment rate that is still higher than at any point in the last recession and equal to the peak in the 1990-91 recession and the Post thinks that President Obama has reason to crow? In fact, most of the improvement has been due to people dropping out of the labor force. Even with the jump in September, at 58.7 percent the employment to population ratio stands much closer to its low of 58.2 percent reached last summer than the pre-recession peak of 63.3 percent. (The picture is slightly better using an age-adjusted EPOP, as Paul Krugman constructed, but the story is very much the same.)

No one expects an economy to remain permanently depressed. The fact that we are still seeing unemployment rates and other measures of labor market weakness that are consistent with a severe recession almost 5 years after the recession began is really really bad news. If the Post applied the same performance standards to teachers as it does to our economic policy makers, no teacher in the country ever would have been fired for not being competent. 

Much else in this column is annoyingly wrong. For example, the piece tells us that wages rose 0.3 percent in September. Yes, this was after two months of essentially zero growth. The monthly data are extremely erratic. (Doesn't anyone there know this?) Over the last year the average hourly wage has increased by 1.8 percent, roughly enough to keep pace with inflation, meaning that workers are getting none of the benefits of the economy's productivity growth.

It then does another pitch for supporting the bailout of its rich Wall Street friends:

Mark WeisbrotThe Guardian Unlimited, 5 de octubre, 2012En Inglés

Mark WeisbrotThe Guardian Unlimited, 3 de octubre, 2012En Inglés

Mark WeisbrotThe Guardian Unlimited, October 5, 2012En Español

October 5, 2012

October 5, 2012 (Jobs Byte)

October 2012, Dean Baker

October 2012, David Rosnick