Argentina battles unfounded electoral fraud claims

Author: AFP

Without proof, or any complaints filed, claims of electoral fraud have been shared tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of times on social media accounts backing Argentina’s ultra-libertarian presidential candidate Javier Milei.

Like Donald Trump, defeated in the US elections of 2020, or Brazil’s far-right Jair Bolsonaro who lost the vote last year, outsider Milei has himself helped fuel suspicion ahead of a runoff on November 19 in which he will face economy minister Sergio Massa.

On pro-Milei sites, videos of torn ballot papers or provisional counts that differ from the final result — which election officials say is quite common — have sought to cast doubt on the process following the October 22 first round.

Anti-establishment Milei came second out of five candidates in the first voting round, garnering nearly 30 percent of the vote behind Massa with 36.7 percent.

AFP Fact Check has disproven the veracity of many of the images being shared.

Some were spread by right-wing political consultant Fernando Cerimedo, who is also known to have disseminated unproven claims of cheating in the Brazilian election won last year by leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Recently, Milei’s spokesman Guillermo Francos proffered: “I will not say that there was fraud” in the first round of voting in Argentina, for a lack of concrete evidence.

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