These Venezuelan election observers have received death threats. Now they are in hiding.

Anthony is hiding in this Colombian city on the border with Venezuela. He says he was targeted by paramilitary groups known as “colectivos,” the main enforcers of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, after volunteering to be an election observer for the opposition party. He fled to Cúcuta, along with other election workers, all of whom describe receiving similar threats. We have agreed not to reveal their faces or use their full names for their safety and the safety of the families they left behind. All of their stories provide firsthand evidence of a post-election crackdown that took place largely out of public view. The vote counts they and other observers collected were made public, showing that opposition candidate Edmundo González actually won the majority of the vote. While many countries, including the United States, have cast doubt on the election results, Maduro continues to claim victory. He and his supporters are now targeting the opposition as terrorists, with threats in the form of text messages and showing up at their homes. Anthony worked as a baker in Venezuela. Others were chefs, salesmen and engineers. The Times reviewed evidence that corroborated their accounts of being targeted as election observers. All of the men who had been targeted for their political activism in the past said the threats after this election appeared more blatant and direct. Celso Barbosa himself fled Venezuela six years ago. He said the men were the first group of political exiles he helped escape the country after the July election. Barbosa recently attended a protest in Colombia calling for Maduro to leave office. Meanwhile, Maduro has yet to release his electoral records, and González has now fled the country to Spain after a Venezuelan supreme court issued an arrest warrant for him. The men say that if Maduro is sworn in as president in January, others will soon be forced to flee the country as well.