A graphic showing each candidate’s vote share in the Venezuelan election shows the total percentage of votes adds up to 109%.
The 109% figure comes from assuming several candidates received 4.6% of the vote each. They actually had a combined share of 4.6%, taking the total to 100%. Separate to this, the results of the election have been disputed.
Several posts on social media claim that the total percentage of votes in the recent Venezuelan election, in which results have been disputed, added up to 109%.
But the graph shown alongside these claims shows several candidates had a combined vote share of 4.6% (adding up to 100%), not 4.6% each.
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The posts making this claim feature a screenshot of a graph broadcast by Telesur, a state-funded TV network headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela. The graph features five candidates, and adding up the percentages next to their names equals 109%.
However, this calculation assumes the three candidates with 4.6% got a 4.6% vote share each. That figure is actually their combined percentage of the vote share.
Using Google Lens, Full Fact was able to find the same graph in a video on Telesur’s YouTube channel. Seconds later the TV channel shows another page full of other candidates who also have 4.6% next to their names.
An English version of the TV channel also shows head of the country’s National Electoral Council (CNE), Elvis Amoroso, saying other candidates received 462,704 votes, or 4.6% of the vote between all eight.
The CNE declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner of the election held on 28 July, but the result has been disputed.
CNE head, Mr Amoroso, is a close ally of Mr Maduro. He announced that with 80% of ballots counted, President Maduro had 51% of the vote, compared to 44% for his main rival.
But the opposition led by Edmundo González has dismissed the CNE’s announcement as fraudulent and says it has proof their leader won most votes. They say Mr González had won with 70% of the votes and that therefore he was the rightful president-elect.
The UK Foreign Office has said it is “concerned by allegations of serious irregularities in the counting and declared results of Sunday's presidential election in Venezuela” and called for “the swift and transparent publication of full, detailed results to ensure that the outcome reflects the votes of the Venezuelan people”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said the US had “serious concerns that the declared outcome does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people”.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as partly false because the 4.6% figure referred to the combined total for the three candidates, not 4.6% each, so the total is 100% not 109%.
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