Reform Party Admits Voting Fraud Took Place in Internal Election
The Reform Party has said it believes fraud was committed in its party leadership election last week, and at its last leadership election in 2011, as a number of the party's elderly members have turned out to be unaware that e-votes had been cast in their names.
Details of the suspicions from last week's vote have not yet been disclosed, but some important clues have emerged on the 2011 leadership vote, Eesti Ekspress reported.
The weekly newspaper conducted an investigation, selecting pensioners from the Lääne-Viru County voting district who had joined the party within a year of the 2011 election. There were 30 such members and the weekly was only able to get in touch with about 20 of them. Six said that, while they were members, they had not participated in the election despite records showing that they did.
In the 2011 vote, there were 1,157 e-ballots and 154 paper ballots cast. The party had around 10,000 members at the time.
After being approached by the weekly, the Reform Party said it suspected the fraud was repeated in last week's leadership election. The party said it does not know who could have organized it but that it is investigating the matter.
"The internal election system's technical trustworthiness is important to us. Our technical systems are audited and all activities are without exception logged for checking in hindsight," said Secretary General Martin Kukk.
The party's e-voting system is not related to the electronic voting system that Estonia uses in nationwide elections.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly said election fraud was suspected to have taken place in Lääne County. In fact, the voting district in question was Lääne-Viru County.