MIAMI, United States. — Independent organizations that monitored the voting in Cuba On March 26, they identified at least 31 irregularities and 13 illegal ones in them, as well as “a widespread and open pattern of fraud” in the process.
According to the Citizen Electoral Observation Report, prepared by the Electoral Rights Observers (ODE), Cuban Electoral Defense Commission (COCUDE) and Citizens Observers of Electoral Processes (COPE) platforms, the “rejection vote” prevailed in the elections, a striking fact , “even within a voting model that denies electoral competition.”
The document – to which the EFE Agency— points out that “the rejection vote (including abstention, invalid vote and blank vote) revealed the deep electoral currents that are at the base of society.”
Among the irregularities detected in the voting are the cutting of the internet of independent journalists, the police site of activists, as well as the arrests and threats to workers with dismissal if they did not participate in the “elections”.
The Citizen Electoral Observation Report also highlights the application by the authorities of the so-called “tun tun operation”, consisting of door-to-door visits to homes to urge the population to participate in the elections.
The preparation of the report had the contribution of 78 independent observers who were distributed in 135 schools in 33 municipalities in 14 of the 15 provinces of the country.
Other illegalities reported by the observers were the “inclusion of deceased persons in electoral rolls”, “coercion to vote (towards doctors) in hospitals”, “polling stations where unregistered people voted” and “extending the vote for a hour more, without causes of force majeure”.
The organizations that contributed to the realization of the Citizen Electoral Observation Report maintain that, based on their data, the average abstention in the elections would be 55.24%, while the blank vote would be 22.76% and the null in 11.17%.
