LAST YEAR I was an international observer during Venezuela’s presidential elections. Part of my duty was to monitor voters’ privacy, their safety, technical aspects of each polling center and the voting machines. Alongside other election monitors from around the world, I gained a wealth of knowledge of what goes into creating an atmosphere of safety so that the electorate can exercise its democratic right to vote fairly and free from intimidation. We spent many long hours learning how the voting machines functioned — how they give voters the ability to cast votes electronically and certify their accuracy, and then print out paper receipts to deposit into a ballot box that would later be audited against an electronic tally.

It was a sometimes tedious education but along the way one that let me understand the issues faced by Venezuelans and how outsiders often mischaracterize them. Just as last year, a national vote slated for today on constitutional reforms is receiving similar one-sided and inaccurate attention.

While we don’t have to agree with the proposed constitutional updates, we should at a minimum respect the process. According to Venezuela’s constitution, measures to reform the constitution can be instigated by the president, the congress or a small percentage of registered voters.

In this instance, President Hugo Chavez submitted a series of proposals to be reviewed by the congress, which then approved them after much debate and dialogue. Shortly after, the congress added other proposals following intense consultation with the citizenry and advocacy groups.

If passed by the electorate through a national referendum, the reforms would deepen the social and economic changes under President Chavez that have just begun to affect the population, lessening poverty and affording more human rights to the majority. Discrimination based on sexual orientation and health would be criminalized while community organizations would receive direct funding for social-development projects.

Other proposals that have received much more attention include Article 337, which would let a state of emergency be enacted while still upholding a citizen’s right to due process, as well as the right of the president to run for re-election for as many terms as he wants. What is less known is that the electorate would still have the right to recall the president mid-term, a democratic right that we still lack in the United States.

So much of the news of late presents such a one-sided view of Venezuela that many Americans find it hard to imagine anything good coming from that nation or its democratically elected president. But not only has President Chavez aided the Colombian government in negotiating a hostage swap with FARC rebels, but he has also helped create massive anti-poverty, education and health programs that have touched more than half of Venezuela’s 26 million citizens. Poverty has dropped by more than 30 percent since he took office and illiteracy has almost been rooted out for good. It would behoove us all to remember that neither leaders nor nations can be saints or sinners all of the time, and most of the time a more nuanced perspective is in order.

Miguel C. Luna is a Providence city councilman.