Application worked out by CEC of Azerbaijan has released voting results in advance
It is expected that the presidential elections in Azerbaijan will not meet the international standards. The app designed by the authoritarian government of Azerbaijan has accidentally released the final result of the vote count a day before the elections, the international human rights organization «Access», which is engaged in the protection and expansion of digital rights of users around the world states on its website.
According to the application, incumbent president, Dictator Ilham Aliyev received the majority of the votes. Portal notes that the application is developed by the Central Electoral Commission and is named after the commission. Portal writes that the Azerbaijani TV channel "Meidan-TV" was the first to report about the application defect, and stated that the publication of the results was a proof of election frauds.
The Human Rights organization notes that in besides the publication of the results, according to which Aliyev had received 72.76% of the votes, and the united opposition candidate Jamil Hasanli - 7.4%, the application had also released information about how many people had taken part in the voting at different times in a day.
"Azerbaijan played host to the U.N. Internet Governance Forum almost one year ago. If Meydan TV’s allegations of fraud prove true, this would be a troubling use of technology to obfuscate democratic processes, and a validation of the concerns raised by civil society during the IGF about the free flow of information in Azerbaijan,” - said the executive director of the Access Brett Solomon.
The article also says that for more than a month leading up to today’s election, election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have been deployed to Azerbaijan. The monitors from the OSCE, have criticized this year’s electoral campaigns, for the state-controlled media’s heavy coverage of President Aliyev in comparison with other candidates.
“Access calls on OSCE election monitors and the international community to promptly investigate these allegations, and ensure that technology is used as a tool for electoral transparency and not to further the interests of the repressive incumbent government,” said Solomon.