Late last year, Venezuela’s democratic opposition set out to choose, jointly, someone who could challenge Nicolás Maduro, the country’s autocratic president, in an election that was sure to be violent and unfair. Hundreds of thousands of participants from different political parties voted in a primary held across Venezuela and in exile communities abroad. Although they risked harassment and arrest, people donated space in private homes and offices to make the vote possible. Others stood in line for hours, in parks and plazas, to choose the victor, María Corina Machado. Machado’s career began when she founded an election-monitoring group more than two decades ago, and she has since then served as a member of the National Assembly, as a party leader, and as a persistent voice in favor of international sanctions on the regime. The Venezuelan leadership responded, over many years, by repeatedly accusing her of conspiracy, treason, and fraud, even banning her from leaving the country.

After Machado won the primary, Maduro’s regime also barred her from running for president, and then blocked a substitute candidate; finally it allowed the opposition to nominate a retired diplomat, Edmundo González. Instead of weakening, the civic movement gathered speed. Having pulled off the feat of the primary, Machado and her colleagues trained more than 1 million volunteers to protect the election itself, which was scheduled for July 28. At thousands of workshops held all over the country, they prepared to monitor the polling stations, report irregularities using a secure app, collect