Allegations of fraud in provincial elections from both sides

From the nation’s capital, the national government spoke on possible irregularities at the polls this Sunday 27 October. The complaints were mainly focused on Buenos Aires urban cone.

Minister of Transportation Guillermo Dietrich was the first to announce, through his social media accounts, accounts of irregularities with valid identification documents. 

“We are getting complaints from our District Attorneys in Buenos Aires Province, especially in Partidos de Merlo, La Matanza, Malvinas Argentina, Pilar, and Almirante Brown. Voters allegedly presented themselves to voting tables with previous or expired IDs,” the government worker said in a Twitter thread.

In the same line of thought, Education Minister and gubernatorial candidate for La Matanza from Juntos por el Cambio Alejandro Finocchiaro gave out a public call to “respect” the citizen’s vote amon fraud allegations.

In formal communication with the Noticias Argentinas news agency, Finocchiaro asked that “the vote of the Argentine people is respected,” after warning that since 7am and the start of the elections his space has “fought” against “practices” that have been “repeating for 30 years” since the years of peronism.

The minister declared that there had also been false allegations of bomb threats in three city schools. All allegations were addressed by government officials through proper protocol.

The electoral council for Buenos Aires Province announced that in multiple voting locations distributed a “false announcement” on behalf of the organisation that “el corte de boleta” (cutting the ballot) would be illegal in gubernatorial races in all of the Province of Buenos Aires. 

Through a press release, the provincial body pointed out that “this body never printed or wrote such document ... such would be illegal by clashing with the established norms.”

Cabinet Chief for City Government Matías Tombolini, candidate for the Consenso Federal party, also denounced fraud allegations in the City of Buenos Aires. “It’s concerning what is happening in the city election. It shows us there are people who are VERY worried that we are getting our people out there to vote.”  

“They are falsifying ballot tickets from the Consenso Federal, changing the numbers and presenting a ballot that didn’t have the City identification number,” explains Tombolini in a video that shows the tickets that circulated among Buenos Aires voting centres. 

“The number of the original ticket is 504, what we can see here is 137. This is a fake ballot,” he stated. “One thing would be for this ticket to be a photocopy and for it to appear in a single voting centre, but this fake ballot appeared in voting centres 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, and 14 up to now. We have already placed a complaint. This only benefits those who can gain from a blank or cut vote in the City of Buenos Aires.”

Frente de Todos also denounced a similar complaint at the voting centre in Bahía Blanca. In some dark room in the midst of the City of Buenos Aires, fraudulent voting tickets were identified as part of the peronist coalition. As the complaint details, in the national lawmaker category, the ballots show the list as number 508, when in the official one is listed under list 503.

–PERFIL/TIMES