On Dec. 4, Venezuela will hold Congressional elections. They are expected to be the final nail in the coffin of the Venezuelan opposition as dictator Hugo Chavez consolidates power and installs a Marxist regime.

There are pretenses of them being legitimate as a vote however and therein lies the farce.

A test of the Smartmatic voting machines and the Cogent Systems fingerprint machines showed that not one ballot had ever been secret when the matter was put before European Union election observers, who indeed were not fooled. That led to a threatened boycott of the election and this morning, the electoral authorities agreed to halt the use of the tainted machinery. The bloggers have been whipping up a storm on the llano over this, so here is a swift roundup of the English-language blogs:

DEVIL’S EXCREMENT‘s Miguel has a superb summary and roundup of all the swiftly moving events happening. In the face of all these problems, he makes the final appeal to his fellow Venezuelans: Go out and defend your right to vote by voting. It’s an exquisite piece and recommended reading first thing because it’s so intelligible to beginners.

VENEZUELA NEWS & VIEWS‘s Daniel has three superb long pieces explaining out in minute detail the emerging problems with this election. It’s well worth the clicks here, here, and here.

PMBCOMMENTS‘s Pedro has a strong, simple cartoon underlining graphically the cause and effect of this rigged electoral system as it stands now. See it here.

CARACAS CHRONICLES‘s Francisco has several short essays explaining the matter in language a baby could understand the extent of the cheating and the shamelessness of the authorities. He goes out of his way to show in reasonable terms where the trouble lies. It’s well worth a look here, here, here, and here.

VCRISIS has an important translation of a news account – by a top journalist in Venezuela – showing that 70% of the electoral machines are tainted. It’s a must-read here.