Unexplained Phenomena: Election Edition

Venezuela's opposition leaders have boycotted the audit (results due today!) of Sunday's election, claiming -- to quote the Associated Press -- that "they had unearthed new evidence of fraud, which they insisted the audit as proposed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the Organization of American States would fail to detect." Here's the argument:

Rampersad claimed touch-screen voting machines in at least 500 polling sites produced the exact same number of "yes" votes in favor of ousting Chavez, a result he said was statistically impossible. He said the supposed finding indicated the machines were rigged to impose a ceiling on "yes" votes.

The audit intended to compare electronic and paper ballots. But Rampersad said opponents were concerned the paper ballots which have been under the care of Venezuela's military may have been tampered with since Sunday's votes. He said the opposition wanted the audit to include an examination of the internal workings of the machines' software.

But according to The New York Times, the audit is examining "150 voting tables -- each with two or three voting machines." Perhaps I'm missing some important distinction here. Does the opposition simply want the auditors to look at more machines? Is the complaint that they're not examining all the inner workings of those machines? Or are they just looking for excuses to throw doubt on the results? (Those aren't rhetorical questions: I'd like to hear from people who have been following this more closely than I have. I'd also like to hear more about those election observers who have reportedly disputed the opposition's claims of irregularities.)

Meanwhile, pro-Chavez forces have noted some alleged anomalies of their own. From one election night report:

Already with just minutes to spare before 3:00 p.m. international media began receiving emails from IP address 172.138.233.63 claiming to release preliminary results….We do not give much credence to the information since tracing the sender IP to Virginia, USA.

Update: Carroll Andrew Morse has more information at TechCentralStation.