How much influence did the Bush administration have on Venezuela's recall election?

It's a well known fact that the Bush administration wants Venezuelan president Chavez out of power, and that some of its fingerprints were all over the attempted coup in 2002. Now it appears that a US-based polling firm tried influencing the Venezuelan recall vote by releasing exit polls saying Chavez lost 5 hours before voting was closed.

"Exit Poll Results Show Major Defeat for Chavez," the survey, conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, asserted even as Sunday's voting was still on. But in fact, the opposite was true Chavez ended up trouncing his enemies and capturing 59 percent of the vote.

Why would PSB Associates release possibly false exit polling data before elections closed? Could it be because the opposition to Chavez were on their payroll?

Penn, Schoen & Berland had members of Sumate, a Venezuelan group that helped organize the recall initiative, do the fieldwork for the poll, election observers said.

Roberto Abdul, a Sumate official, acknowledged in a telephone interview that the firm "supervised" an exit poll carried out by Sumate. Abdul added that at least five exit polls were completed for the opposition, with all pointing to a Chavez victory.

I know that, at this point, implicating that the Bush administration had anything to do with this is pure speculation, but given their stance and help with the attempted coup against Chavez, you have to wonder why a polling firm that just happens to be based in the US was trying to influence the recall vote.