Mayor Daley would be proud!

Thug Hugo swipes one in Venezuela:

It's the very worst thing that could've happened. CNE head Francisco Carrasquero, by himself, announces a set of partial results that give the government a huge advantage. The opposition CNE members immediately say the announcement was made without following proper procedures. The opposition cries foul, and announces mirror-image results. The Carter Center/OAS mission is missing in action, at least at first.

A national disaster, in short. The referendum was meant to bring closure to the governance crisis in Venezuela. With results that fly in the face of exit-poll results, announced on the basis of a fishy procedure, the referendum takes Venezuela further away from closure, not closer.
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Pray for Venezuela, folks...it's going to get ugly.

More here:

The CD says the results are exactly the opposite based on : Exit polls and the addition of all of the final results of all of the polling stations in the country added by Sumate. They said that the two CNE Directors that are not pro-Chavez were not allowed in the totalling of the data of the CNE. There was no audit of the paper ballots and this was a gigantic fraud. Nothing yet from OAS and the Carter Center. I hear two different rumors, one that at ten AM there will be a press conference, two, that OAS may leave the country without saying anything a la Peru. Very sad and confusing outcome. This is the worst possible. The CD also said they will ask for the addition of all paper ballots printed by the voting machines.

The laugh of the night was the left wing UK Independent reporting that "Venezuela's Chavez on brink of referendum defeat" on the basis of the exit polls. Now that they got the talking points, the link goes to a 404.

And actually, I'm doing Hizzoner a disservice. He was always deft enough in Chicago to steal "just enough" votes, not everything in sight.