; Whereas, on October 13, 2020, members of the Lima Group—including Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela—issued a joint declaration on the Maduro regime’s efforts to hold legislative elections in December 2020 that expressed firm rejection of the continuing of the illegitimate regime of Nicolás Maduro in holding parliamentary elections without the minimum democratic guarantees and without the participation of all political forces ; Whereas, on September 17, 2020, the International Contact Group on Venezuela—whose members include Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Panama, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay—issued a joint declaration on the Maduro regime’s efforts to hold legislative elections in December 2020 that stated that conditions are not met, at the moment, for a transparent, inclusive, free and fair electoral process ; Whereas, on June 12, 2020, the Maduro regime’s illegitimate Supreme Court unilaterally appointed new members to Venezuela’s National Electoral Council without the approval of the democratically elected National Assembly; Whereas, throughout 2020, the Maduro regime— (1) sought to coopt and undermine independent political parties through a campaign of systematic persecution; and (2) used its discredited Supreme Court to strip independent political parties of their leadership, including Voluntad Popular, Primero Justicia, and Acción Democrática; Whereas the Maduro regime has a demonstrated track record of holding fraudulent elections over the last four years; Whereas, on July 30, 2017, the Maduro regime manipulated the results for Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly by more than 1,000,000 votes, according to Smartmatic, the company that supplied Venezuela’s electronic voting machines