There are suspicions of election fraud at the District 1 and District 5 city halls in Bucharest. The suspicions in the first district of the Capital city come after the PSD mayor in office here, Dan Tudorache has claimed on Monday that he would have won elections by 200 votes ahead the USR’s candidate Clotilde Armand, although the exit poll on Sunday revealed that Clotilde Armand was ahead Tudorache by 11.5%.
After counting 94.93% of the votes for the District 1 city hall, Clotilde Armand (USR-PLUS) had 41.06%, Daniel Tudorache (PSD) – 39.72%, and Ioana Constantin (PMP) – 7.75%.
In retort, Clotidle Armand said in a Facebook video post that her foe Dan Tudorache would have actually attempted to forge the results of the vote. Armand has called the Police at the HQ of the District 1 city hall after USR-PLUS representatives had discovered some piles of minutes in the headquarter of the District 1 City Hall, half filled out.
“My colleagues kept a lookout, we are very careful at what it’s going on with the votes here. My colleagues were banned from entering the district electoral bureau, even if they are candidates and they caught a man leaving the electoral bureau with the minutes recording the results of the vote counting. Some piles of minutes have been brought here. We have in the same building the District Electoral Bureau and also the district 1 city hall’s sanitation body. We entered the office of the sanitation authority and we found half filled out memos, so it ‘s clear that here was a campaign office where votes were being monitored for each candidate, there were bags with electoral bribe,” said Clotilde Armand.
She asked that Tudorache and all those who were part in this electoral fraud attempt to be brought to justice.
“It is clear that mathematics is on our side, the memos signed by USR-PLUS and PNL representatives clearly say we have won. We want to be sure that everything will be fine”, she said.
Moreover, on several memos the QR code seems to be cut out and stuck on the sheet.
Police is investigating the case after a guy from the District 1, involved in counting the votes, has been caught carrying over 100 memos filled out and stamped. He was taken to hearings. Sources said that policeman and prosecutors have opened an in rem file in this case, investigating deeds, not persons.
According to statements made by the police chief of District 1 Police Precinct, Ionut Dana, policemen have found a man carrying 773 memos from the polling stations. The man could not say if these memos were the original ones. 8 people have been heard so far in this case, the investigation is under way.
Clotilde Armand has asked the General Prosecutor’s Office to take over the investigation on the District 1 Electoral Bureau.
In his turn, the mayor-elect of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, has also reacted in this case. “It is unbelievable that PSD has tried to fraud the vote in Bucharest, including by forging the memos. This thing must be severely punished, and I am next to my colleagues from PNL and USR-PLUS who asked for the vote recounting where there are fraud suspicions”, Dan posted on Facebook.
Suspicions at District 5, too
Besides the situation at the District 1, more accusations of election fraud have been made at the district 1, with PNL and USR-PLUS representatives denouncing a vote theft. Cristian Bacanu, the PNL candidate for District 5 city hall (who lost the mayor seat) and USR MP Claudiu Nasui explained the PNL and USR-PLUS votes would have been stolen through wrong data from the polling stations introduced in the application of the Central Electoral Bureau.
Cristian Băcanu said that almost 100 votes had been stolen from PNL in just one polling station. “We have the proof that 90 PNL votes had been stolen from the local council in a polling station. These votes have been redirected with the pen to other parties (81 votes to the Roma Party). A vote for me has been removed in another polling station”, Bacanu said.
On the other hand, USR lawmaker Claudiu Nasui also said there is evidence that USR-PLUS votes had been stolen in the polling station no. 127.
“According to the minute USR-PLUS had the highest number of votes in the polling station: 164. According to the Permanent Electoral Authority’s website, the alliance obtained zero votes there. You read well: zero. So, 164 votes were stolen at once. The way of stealing the votes: they redirected the USR-PLUS votes to the other party. Our teams are working now to track down all frauds,” Nasui argued.