The eyes of the world have been focused on polling booths in the US, for obvious reasons, but for a real, concrete example of electoral fraud, you need only look across the ditch.
While the stakes weren’t nearly quite as high, organisers of New Zealand’s annual Bird of the Year competition have confirmed more than 1,500 fraudulent votes were cast this week in the early hours of Monday morning.
This meant for a brief moment the little spotted kiwi, a small bird found all over NZ, was pushed to the top of the rankings – but organisers knew something was fishy.
Election spokesperson Lauren Keown says the votes were all traced back to the same IP address in Auckland, which means they all came from the same person.
“It’s lucky we spotted this little Kiwi trying to sneak in an extra 1,500 votes under the cover of darkness,” Ms Keown said in a statement.
“But they’ll have to play by the rules like all of the other birds to win the competition.”
Here’s hoping the little spotted kiwi won’t act like a certain high-ranking US official that we’ll mention below, and accept the election results.
Voting closes this Sunday, 15 November.
