In the past few months, Joe Biden's 'three stooges' team at the State Department, responsible for handing Venezuela matters, came up with a plan to get Venezuela to pump oil for us, in exchange for the lifting of U.S. sanctions.

The deal? The U.S. would lift sanctions on Venezuelan oil production if Venezuela would hold free and fair elections. It was an odd proposal given that Venezuela's Chavista ruler, Nicolas Maduro, has never held a free or fair election, but Joe, having spent the Strategic Oil Reserve in a previous election cycle and facing another one, and still hellbent on not allowing U.S. producers to produce, needed the Venezuelan oil. Free elections haven't been seen in that country since before the recall referendum on Hugo Chavez of 2004. All the same, everyone was to go along with the claim that Venezuela would hold a free and fair election, and then be free to pump oil without U.S. sanctions.

How'd it go? According to the Associated Press:

Holding Venezuela’s first presidential primary since 2012 required the deeply fractured opposition to work together. Venezuelans, in turn, showed up at voting centers in and outside of their homeland to make it count, enthusiastically lining up for hours despite scorching sun and torrential rain.

Still, what they saw as a monumental exercise in democracy could still prove futile, if Maduro’s government wishes.

While the administration agreed in principle to let the opposition choose its candidate for the 2024 presidential election, it also has already barred primary frontrunner María Corina Machado from running for office. Maduro’s government has in the past bent the law, retaliated against opponents and breached agreements as it sees fit.

Hundreds of people gathered at voting centers in neighborhoods across the capital, Caracas, even before polls were scheduled to open. They stayed in line despite a rainstorm that left them soaking wet. They carried umbrellas, folding stools and coffee to ease the expected waits, and leaned against buildings or stood under marquees to try to avoid the rain.

In the wake of this weekend's little publicized primary (little publicized for a reason) it went about as well as the skeevy deals conducted with Iran's mullahs for the lifting of that country's sanctions. The mullahs -- and now Maduro -- must be laughing up their sleeves at the U.S.

They disqualified the top opposition candidate, and declared that despite the votes she got (92% of the voters), she wouldn't be able to run for election, even in a rigged election, such as they have done for the last two decades.

They messed up the process, forcing voters to wait in long lines, hoping they would go away.

Get a load of these details:

People showed up to vote despite widespread confusion over polling sites and repeated disappointments from an opposition that has long struggled to work in synergy.

Venezuelans typically vote at public schools. But the independent commission that oversaw the primary opted to use homes, churches, private schools and other facilities as voting stations after the country’s electoral authorities did not respond to requests for help in a timely manner.