The Estonian Reform Party believes that voting fraud in its leadership elections in 2011 and last week revealed by the weekly Eesti Ekspress was limited to the West-Viru region.
Estonian Reform Party to look into alleged voting fraud in internal elections
30th May 2013, 17:47
Please note that the article is more than five years old and belongs to our archive. We do not update the content of the archives, so it may be necessary to consult newer sources.
«After learning about the allegations made by the paper, we started a random check of the internal elections. There are no grounds to believe violations occurred in other regions,» the party's secretary general Martin Kukk told BNS.
He said a work group set up to look into the matter will try to establish as soon as possible the circumstances related to Eesti Ekspress' claims.
The weekly has information which suggests that online votes were cast in the party board elections in the name of elderly members of the party who actually did not participate in the vote.
According to Eesti Ekspress, fraud was committed in both the 2011 and 2013 election. Six senior citizens from the West-Viru region told the paper that they had not participated in the election although records show they had cast e-votes. The paper believes this may be just the tip of the iceberg as it took only the West-Viru region under scrutiny.
Eesti Ekspress suspects that fictitious e-mail addresses were created in the name of the pensioners who had joined the party to obtain from the party headquarters passwords and user names which then were used to log on to the party's internal network and cast e-ballots.
The Reform Party said the paper's claims of irregularities in internal elections in the West-Viru regional organization call for an inquiry and it will form a work group to look into the matter. The group consists of MPs Vaino Linde and Peep Aru, head of the party's regional organizations division Reimo Nebokat, IT chief Mati Leet and secretary general Martin Kukk.