Of course these days, you can never be too sure about anything Biden says. The White House tried to clean up his two word response.

The White House quickly walked back Biden’s comments.

“The president was speaking to the absurdity of Maduro and his representatives not coming clean about the July 28 elections,” the National Security Council said in a statement. “It is abundantly clear to the majority of the Venezuelan people, the United States and a growing number of countries that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes on July 28.”

The confusion wasn't missed by Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro who quickly seized on it in his own statement rejecting the plan.

"I reject absolutely that the United States is trying to become Venezuela's electoral authority," Maduro said on state television. "Biden gave an interventionist opinion on the internal issues of Venezuela ... half an hour later they squashed it."

Leading opposition figure Maria Machado also rejected the suggestion, pointing to the obvious futility of it given the current situation.

Machado said during a virtual news conference with Argentine media that redoing the election would be “an insult” to the Venezuelan people. If a second election were held and Maduro still didn’t accept the results, she asked, “do we go for a third one?”

Maduro doesn't want a new election because he just lost the one they held and has no chance of doing better in a repeat. Machado doesn't want a new election because the opposition just won the election and nothing has changed. Maduro refuses to leave office and is claiming he won with 51%. Another election would allow him to drag this for six more months (at least) and he'd just lie again about the results. Granted if Brazil could somehow enforce outside monitors for a new election maybe that would be worthwhile, but they can't do that. 

The sure sign that Maduro lost is that his government still hasn't released the vote tallies they were required to release weeks ago.

Although electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner of the highly anticipated election, they have yet to produce detailed voting tallies to back up their claim. The opposition, however, revealed that it collected tally sheets from more than 80% of the 30,000 electronic voting machines nationwide, showing that Maduro lost by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

An AP review of the tally sheets released indicates that González won significantly more votes than the government has claimed. The analysis casts serious doubt on the official declaration that Maduro won.

The AP processed almost 24,000 images representing the results from 79% of voting machines, resulting in tabulations of 10.26 million votes. The processed tally sheets also showed González receiving more votes on 20,476 receipts compared with 3,157 for Maduro.

So I'm not sure what President Lula thinks this would accomplish? I guess calling for a new election is better than accepting the results but practically speaking it gets us nowhere.

Finally, Maduro's colectivo goons continue to try to intimidate the opposition into accepting the bogus results. They've been spraying X's on the homes of people who support the opposition.

In a poor Caracas neighborhood, the letter “X” is appearing on people’s homes – crude chest-high slashes of paint that residents say amount to a threat.

Residents living in 23 de Enero, once the stronghold of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, believe pro-regime paramilitary groups are behind the spray paint. The groups, known as colectivos, are marking people who had protested the outcome of July’s presidential election, residents told CNN.

“There are some fifty homes in my street, and thirty-two have been marked,” said one resident, who asked to use the alias “Pablo”, due to fear of retaliation for speaking out...

The Venezuelan government recently repurposed an app originally intended to report public administration malfunctions to allow anonymous charges against opposition supporters.

Apple has deleted the app but Google has not. Don't be evil, you jackasses. 

This is all Maduro really has going for him at this point, the allegiance of some die hard communists willing to threaten people who oppose him. That and complete control of the state media of course. Another election isn't going to do anything to help the vast majority of Venezuelans who want him gone. Maduro needs to be removed from office, one way or another.