This message is from the Venezuela Information Office and we have placed the section covering the upcoming Presidential election on VSC.

The president of Venezuela’s election authorities is in Washington, DC this week to brief U.S. officials, journalists and others on the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for December 3rd.

At a public forum held this morning at the Inter-American Dialogue, Doctor Tibisay Lucena addressed a number of the issues facing one of the world’s most scrutinized election agencies, including updating voter registries, ensuring access to the polls for all Venezuelans, developing a state of the art automated voting system, and mediating between two passionate political camps to ensure a free and fair election.

Dr. Lucena’s job is made more difficult by Venezuela’s private media, who frequently act as advocates for the opposition parties. In the month ahead, every rumor and unsubstantiated allegation by opposition parties will become headlines in the Venezuelan press. Many of these stories will be repeated in the U.S. and international press.

Our goal is to help you separate the myths from the facts in the months ahead. To that end we have added a new section to our website. “Venezuela’s 2006 Presidential Elections” will be frequently updated for our readers to get up to speed on the way that the Venezuelan elections will be carried out.

Our first posting involves the results of the CNE’s recent audit of the country’s voter registry, which documents the thousands of potential irregularities investigated by the CNE, and the changes made by the agency.