Misleading claims about ‘rigged’ postal votes before Italian elections

Deceptive claims about “voter rigging” are being shared on-line forward of Italy’s basic election on Sunday.

Viral movies have falsely urged that postal votes overseas will likely be rigged to favour sure political events.

In a single clip on Fb, a person claims that two populist events have been illegally excluded from the poll. Euronews has fact-checked the claims.

Within the video, the person claims that voting slips and poll papers have been despatched to his handle in Lugano, Switzerland, by the native Italian consulate.

He opens the envelope and exhibits the checklist of events on the poll papers, claiming that candidates from Torniamo alla Costituzione, Italexit and Vita have been eliminated. All three populist events are recognized for his or her eurosceptic views and have beforehand shared debunked conspiracy theories.

However in keeping with Italy’s Consulate Common, the three events didn’t register sufficient signatures to run candidates for postal votes.

In Italy postal votes are allowed for residents who’re residing overseas or who’re in a foreign country for at the very least three months for work, examine or medical causes.

Beneath Italy’s electoral guidelines for abroad voters, events should register between 500 and 1,000 signatures in every of the areas to be listed on the poll paper for that area. The variety of signatures falls to 250 within the occasion of a snap election, as is the case in 2022.

One of many populist events, Vita, has confirmed on Fb that they didn’t safe the required signatories to run for abroad votes. Due to this fact, their absence from the poll paper in Lugano isn’t proof of “vote rigging”.

The person additionally claims within the video that an promoting leaflet for the candidates of the centre-left Democratic Celebration (PD) was included within the sealed envelope.

However the footage exhibits that the person’s letter had already been opened earlier than he began filming, compromising the reliability of his claims. Journalists with Euronews’ Italian service in Lyon say they acquired a leaflet from the Democratic occasion in a separate envelope to their voting slip.

Luciano Vecchi, a PD official, has acknowledged that the accusations had been “clearly unfounded” and says that the video had been “manipulated”.

Euronews has contacted the Italian election fee for an announcement on the video allegations.

False claims about voter fraud have beforehand been shared on-line earlier than basic elections in France, Germany, and the Netherlands.