Venezuelan electoral authorities said more than 8 million people voted to create a constitutional assembly endowing President Nicolas Maduro's ruling socialist party with virtually unlimited powers — a number more than double the estimates of independent experts and opposition leaders, who met the announcement with fury and derision.

National Electoral Council President Tibisay Lucena announced just before midnight that "extraordinary turnout" in Sunday's vote was 41.53 percent, or 8,089,320 people. Members of the opposition said they believed between 2 million and 3 million people voted and one well-respected independent analysis put the number at 3.6 million.

In a speech to hundreds of supporters in central Caracas, Maduro hailed it as a win.

"The people have delivered the constitutional assembly," Maduro said on national television. "More than 8 million in the middle of threats ... it's when imperialism challenges us that we prove ourselves worthy of the blood of the liberators that runs through the veins of men, women, children and young people."

"It is the biggest vote the revolution has ever scored in its 18-year history," he said, referring to the year his late mentor, Hugo Chavez, came to power.

The electoral council's vote counts in the past have been seen as reliable and generally accurate, but the widely mocked announcement appeared certain to escalate the polarization and political conflict paralyzing the country.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the governor of the central state of Miranda, urged Venezuelans to protest Monday. Maduro said he would use the assembly's powers to bar opposition candidates from running in gubernatorial elections in December unless they sit with his party to negotiate an end to hostilities that have generated four months of protests that have killed at least 125 and wounded nearly 2,000.

Maduro has banned protests over the vote, threatening prison terms of up to 10 years. The death toll in Sunday's protests included a candidate for the new assembly, a regional opposition leader, two teenage protesters and a soldier in the western state of Tachira, which saw some of the worst violence. In eastern Caracas, seven police were wounded when an improvised explosive targeted their motorcycle convoy.

Several nations including Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Spain, Britain and the United States said they would not recognize Sunday's vote.

"The United States condemns the elections... for the National Constituent Assembly, which is designed to replace the legitimately elected National Assembly and undermine the Venezuelan people's right to self-determination," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

It threatened further "strong and swift" sanctions on Maduro's government.

The head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo confessed earlier that the agency is working to overthrow the Venezuelan government and have collaborated with two countries in the region; Colombia and Mexico.

In one of the clearest clues yet about Washington's meddling in the politics of Latin America, Pompeo said he was "hopeful that there can be a transition in Venezuela and we the CIA is doing its best to understand the dynamic there. "I was just down in Mexico City and in Bogota a week before last talking about this very issue, trying to help them understand the things they might do so that they can get a better outcome for their part of the world and our part of the world," he added.

Things haven't been good between the U.S. and Venezuela since then-President Hugo Chavez called then-President George W. Bush "the devil" in a 2006 speech at the United Nations. In Washington, the U.S. Treasury unveiled a list of 13 current and former officials, including the interior minister, senior military brass, the president of the electoral council, and the finance chief of state oil company PDVSA, whose U.S. assets would be frozen. The U.S. also ordered family members of staff to leave the country ahead of Sunday's vote.

The U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, condemned the vote as a "sham" -- a word also used by Britain's junior foreign minister, Alan Duncan, and many experts.

"The vote means the end of any trace of democratic rule. Maduro's blatant power grab removes any ambiguity about whether Venezuela is a democracy," said Michael Shifter, head of the Inter-American Dialogue research center.

Latin America specialist Phil Gunson, senior analyst at Crisis Group, called the vote "the definitive break with what remains of representative democracy in Venezuela."

"It will accelerate the longer-term trend towards economic, social and political collapse unless those in a position to change course do so, and begin to negotiate a restoration of democracy and economic viability," he said.

According to polling firm Datanalisis, more than 70 percent of Venezuelans oppose the idea of the new assembly -- and 80 percent reject Maduro's leadership.

Venezuelans also protested in Miami, Madrid and various Latin American cities.

The number of Venezuelans living abroad has soared as the once-booming oil producer has descended into a devastating economic crisis marked by shortages, runaway inflation, riots and looting.

Thirteen countries in the 35-member Organization of American States, a regional political bloc, had urged Maduro to suspend Sunday's election. Nations including Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, the United States and Canada said the vote amounted to a "dismantling of democratic institutionality." Several airlines have previously announced flight suspensions as currency controls imposed by Maduro's government have kept them from recovering costs or making a profit.