We are thankful to be welcome on these lands in friendship. The lands we are situated on are covered by the Williams Treaties and are the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, including Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi. These lands remain home to many Indigenous nations and peoples.

We acknowledge this land out of respect for the Indigenous nations who have cared for Turtle Island, also called North America, from before the arrival of settler peoples until this day. Most importantly, we acknowledge that the history of these lands has been tainted by poor treatment and a lack of friendship with the First Nations who call them home.

This history is something we are all affected by because we are all treaty people in Canada. We all have a shared history to reflect on, and each of us is affected by this history in different ways. Our past defines our present, but if we move forward as friends and allies, then it does not have to define our future.

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The Legalization of Electoral Fraud in Venezuela

Giancarlo Fiorella, PhD student, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto

Published April 19, 2018 by Technologies of Justice.

At the Technologies of Justice Conference, hosted January 26 to 27, 2018 at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa Ontario, Giancarlo Fiorella speaks about the influence of social media, democracy, communication and governmentality on the legalization of electoral fraud in Venezuela.

Fiorella helps us trace a shift that has taken place in the political regime in Venezuela from a democracy to a competitive authoritarian regime, and then to a more traditional authoritarian dictatorship. He points out what he has observed through changes that have taken place in the country’s electoral body. Giancarlo discusses the Consejo Nacional Electoral (National Electoral Council, the central electoral regulation body) in Venezuela, the Venezuelan election in 2015 and the final perfection of institutionalized electoral fraud in Venezuela by 2017. He frames Venezuela’s centre step as a “competitive authoritarian regime,” somewhere between democratic and authoritarian forms of governing a country. He makes apparent the abuse of the electoral system and unfairness through ways such as fraud to constitute a competitive authoritarian regime and how a government was created using democratic tools to achieve undemocratic ends.

He examines the suppression of votes that do not agree with the government, from government cheating to election tampering, and the progressing process of electoral fraud. He emphasizes the need to study the change in law in Venezuela before the national crisis so we can prevent such crises and mitigate the damages caused by governments going through a similar crisis.