Fraud in Chubut elections 'has been confirmed,' Randazzo says

As certain discrepancies come to light in vote recount taking place in the Chubut province, Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo said that the National Government’s suspicions that results had been tampered with “have been ratified,” and that this proves “fraud was committed during last Sunday’s elections.”

“In the beginning we wanted to remain prudent because it was just a suspicion, but now data confirms there was fraud,” he said.

“It’s an open ending. I said last Sunday that we suspected the elections results had been tampered with, and some people had incurred in borderline cheating. Now, with the final results being published, we can confirm there was fraud,” he stated.

The Interior Minister indicated that the Electoral Tribune had finished the recount in the city of Rawson, where one of its polling stations had registered zero votes for the FPV candidates. However, the final recount indicated that the Victory Front had actually gathered 140 votes for governor and 258 votes going to provincial lawmakers.

The minister said that the most “serious irregularities” had been found in the city of Puerto Madryn, where in just two polling stations over 900 votes have been apparently “miscounted.”

“In polling station 183, officials said 888 votes had gone to the Das Neves candidate, when they were just, in fact, 88. This shows they added an extra 800 votes,” Randazzo stated.

Randazzo said he “deeply regretted” the lack of transparency, which “failed to guarantee the will of the voters.”

“We will only know who the real governor is once the final recount is finished,” he said.