The ultra-candidate for the presidency of Argentina, Javier Milei, accuses electoral fraud. He achieved this by winning the primaries on August 13 and also the first round on October 22, when he came second, almost seven points behind the Peronist Sergio Massa, his rival next Sunday. So far there have been complaints in the media, without any evidence, but enough to prompt his supporters to question the reliability of an electoral system that had been functioning smoothly since 40 years, when it organized the first post-dictatorship elections. This Thursday he took another step, just three days before the final election. Through her sister Karina Milei, representative of her party La Libertad Avanza, she denounced in court that the Gendarmerie, the military police responsible for the safekeeping of ballot boxes and ballot papers, had orchestrated a “colossal fraud” in the first round that benefited Peronism . Security Minister Aníbal Fernández, who oversees the gendarmerie, accused Milei of spreading “dirt” among voters that endangers democracy.
In Argentina people vote with ballot papers. The voter selects their candidate’s letter and places it in their envelope, which they close and place in a cardboard ballot box. At the end of the day, the table president and the prosecutors count the votes and upload the result onto a form that they hand over to the gendarmerie. It is the gendarmes who guard the documents and ballot boxes before they are sent to the electoral board for final examination. “At this moment, depending on the needs, for a certain period of time, they change the contents of the ballot boxes and the documentation for others, modifying them in favor of the ruling party and Sergio Massa, which significantly alters the election result,” says the letter sent by Karina Milei to the electoral judge María Servini de Cubría transmitted.
Milei gave a concrete example: “If the authentic original documentation states ‘La Libertad Avanza, 40 votes’ and ‘Unión por la Patria, 10’, it incorrectly states ‘La Libertad Avanza, 10 votes’ and ‘Unión por la Patria’ specified. 40′. That is, they modify what was duly established in the protocols, which up to that point had not been transmitted due to the lack of certain schools with transmission centers.” The entire operation, the letter states, “would be in exchange for a certain Compensation has been made by the instigators of the crime.”
In order to neutralize what Milei saw as a “colossal fraud” against him, La Libertad Avanza requested that its prosecutors be authorized to guard the record until its final delivery. And that the Air Force and Navy participate in the control operations, which it considers “honorable forces.” The letter contains numerous details about the alleged operation against him, but immediately admits that the sources are “social media complaints” and “anonymous” people. Minister Fernández announced that he would sue Milei and his party. “We have to tell society that it is a lie that something like this is happening. But not just in the gendarmerie, in every military force, because it would not be possible to train them. “It’s gross, it’s despicable, like all the things that these people who don’t have much political training want to do and believe that with their language they only do harm,” he said.
Milei said after winning the primaries that they “robbed” him between four and five points. And Peronism did the same, letting him finish second in the first round in October. He never presented any legal evidence. Last Tuesday, Buenos Aires provincial election judge La Libertad Avanza warned that she had cast fewer ballots than was necessary to ensure supplies to schools. The party then informed him that it had decided to keep them and distribute them through its prosecutors on the day of the election to prevent them from being stolen or destroyed.
The fraud allegations raised by Milei suggest a tense election night. The polls show a technical tie, with differences in favor of one candidate or the other within the margin of statistical error. If the result ends up being as close as expected, the Ultra candidate has planted enough to challenge the results.