That????s what happened in Venezuela today. I????m blogging live from Caracas, and today I saw utterly empty polling stations, one after another, guarded only by tinpot military men with big guns and the occasional red-t-shirted chavista troll on the street corner, standing around looking mean and intimidating for voters. On and off it rained, as if to signal the end of Chavez????s fortunes. A news story about the fiasco is here.

Miguel Octavio and I went across the entire city of Caracas in search of a polling station full of people. Or half full. Or people at all! We targeted the most likely places like the slums of East and West Caracas (heroic of Miguel to drive the long length of the enormous city) because we wanted to find some, any, place where polls were happening. His post and photos are here.

We didn????t find any serious turnout in East or West Caracas at all, the places where the red towering cinderblock slums stretch up the Andean peaks like Doctor Seuss from Hell villages. None. We went to about 15 stations and saw about four voters at one station in West Caracas and another four at another station nearby. Otherwise, there was nothing, and we did look inside, noted the utter absence of people and took pictures. The only place where we found a line of voters was just outside Chavez????s presidential palace where some troops were standing in line to vote. They had been told: Vote, Or Else.

Not that there wasn????t some spectacle. The shopping malls and informal and wet markets were pulsating with people, showing up in vast numbers to create the sizzling energy of Caracas. There were traffic jams and rhumba and reggaeton music around those areas of the city. But not around the polling stations. Politicswise, near the presidential palace, the only spectacle was of some CREEPY women marching around in a circle in long blonde wigs, kind of like something you see in Liberia where those guys with ballgowns and bras and wigs carry guns and massacre people. That????s what it reminded me of! You can????t believe how ugly they looked. They were supporting this chick here named Lina Ron who is a female thug and likes to ride around on her motorcycle and shoot people. If you think she????s ugly (and tell me that isn????t the ugliest human being you????ve ever seen), her supporters were even uglier! Unfortunately, my photo did not turn out well but I’ll try to get another of this crew later on.

What an “election”! What a freak show! Abstention looks close to 90% or more.

Voters of course are abstaining because they lack faith in the system. One, there is outright fraud, where voters don????t think their votes are being counted at all. Two, there is a sort of gerrymandering of the system that gives disproportionate weight to Chavista votes – this rigging is called ????morochas????and you can read much more about it on Miguel????s or Daniel????s blogs. Three, there is no guarantee of secrecy – the Chavistas have wrought severe revenge on anyone who didn????t vote for them since the recall referendum of 2004, putting voters on something called ????the Tascon list????which deprived them of jobs, passports, and services, and meanwhile, they proved to election observers that fingerprint machines were being used to ascertain the identity of Venezuelan voters and how they voted. The electoral body, known as CNE, said it wouldn????t use the fingerprint machines just this time but that sure as hell didn????t restore confidence: after all, the problem was not technology, it was the intentions of the Chavistas running the vote. Would you trust them and say it was just the bad machine?

Neither would I.

The great pullout of the voters, matching the great pullout of all the opposition parties, has left the Chavistas in a panic.

I watched Venezuelan state television, called ????VTV????in the afternoon and was appalled at what I saw:

There was this Carol Merrill type chick in a low-cut tank top named Milagros Casas or something like that, holding up a ballot box, sultrily drawing her hand across it, turning it upside down to show it was empty, showing some cleavage, feathering her hand across a model ballot, insisting it was safe and secure – all in this Chavista effort to use sex to sell people on the idea that the voting was honest! How is that for hell? Even Castro never thought of that one!

After she got done trying to seduce you or sell you fraud or whatever, some boring ministers made speeches and then there was a cut to Chavez who sort of rapping to guitar music, talking in a singsong voice about the wonders of Venezuela. He got more contorted and intense as the song went on and pretty soon he was shouting and bellowing angrily, like a madman. If a normal person was doing that, I????d flip the channel, but this was a head of state! Acting like a lunatic! In front of my eyes! Chavez finished his ????song???? and there was no explanation from the station as to what that was all about.

They returned to the boring ministers attempting to explain away the false election, saying it was rainy – and make feeble efforts to rally the Chavez faithful. Because the way things look now in Caracas, not even the Chavistas can stand Chavez.

This is a disaster for his fake revolution and the renewed beginnings of Venezuela????s real revolution. Through their brave silence, Hugo Chavez can no longer perpetrate the fiction that he is the democratically elected leader of Venezuela. He is a fraud and a dictator and has got to go.