A group of Venezuelan engineers and experts in mathematics rebutted the statement of U.S. statistician Jonathan Taylor, on whose researches The Carter Center based to claim that no fraud was committed in the August 15 revoking referendum on President Hugo Chávez, and Taylor publicly backed down in his web page (www.stat.standford.edu/jtaylo/) and admitted he was wrong.

 Jorge Rodríguez, a spokesman for the group, previously said they sent Taylor a mathematic model the engineer Elio Valladared developed to show Taylor that is was highly unlikely that similar results were obtained in 336 different voting stations, as Taylor ensured.

Rodríguez added that Taylor sent him an e-mail admitting: "I have realized my model was wrong."

"Therefore, the figures The Economist quoted (in an article by The Carter Center official Jennifer McCoy claiming that the August 15 recall vote was transparent) are seriously defective."

Taylor corrected his model and admitted that the new results "all almost identical to yours. I regret not having realized my mistake before the article was published in The Economist."