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Claims of Election Fraud Resonate With Growing Audience
[ABCNEWS.GO] Outraged claims of voting fraud are no longer only a regular part of elections in unsteady, young democracies -- they're increasingly being made in established democratic countries by populist politicians who question the fairness of the voting process -- and with it the validity of representation by and for the people.At the final debate of the U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump refused to commit to honor the result of the Nov. 8 vote. But he's not the only example of a politician casting doubt on the fairness of the democratic system in countries where it is the norm. Austria's right-wing Freedom Party had the results of presidential elections this year overturned after its candidate was narrowly defeated; fear that ballots marked in pencil in Britannia could be tampered with forced that country's electoral commission to issue a statement reminding voters they could use a pen if they preferred; and former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi ...former Italian prime minister, known for his plain (for a European politician) speaking and his liking for hookers a third his age or less... has yet to concede defeat in a 2006 vote that he claims was flawed. Populists in Europe argue that the cards are stacked against them by the whole process, a message that appears to be gaining support. "A wide segment of people is questioning democratic institutions across Europe and the U.S.," said Brian Klaas of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Politicians in young democracies are predictably most prone to cry fraud. Opposition parties in the formerly communist Yugoslav republics of Montenegro and Macedonia have questioned the validity of national elections in the past year, and Poland's right-wing Law and Justice party, now in power nationally, challenged the results of local elections it lost two years ago. But populist parties in some of Europe's established democracies are also increasingly flashing the fraud card, hoping to gain by spreading distrust of the establishment, even at the cost of turmoil. Comments from Trump supporter Roger Stone in August indicate a common trans-Atlantic playbook. "I think we have widespread voter fraud, but the first thing that Trump needs to do is begin talking about it constantly," Stone said in a podcast discussion with conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. "If there's voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government." Posted by: Fred 2016-11-05 |
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