How ghost voters helped the CPP win the election

In 2007 and 2008, under the pretext of “cleaning up” voter lists, the National Election Committee (NEC), which is controlled by the CPP, deliberately did the opposite of what it should have done: the NEC deleted names that should have remained on the lists and kept names that should have been deleted. The NEC deleted hundreds of thousands of names of bona fide voters, known to be unfavorable to the CPP, and kept hundreds of thousands of names of ghost voters in order to build up a reserve of fraudulent votes for the CPP. The outcome was that hundreds of thousands of persons without the right to vote (citizens not registered on the lists of the residential commune, or underage, or foreigners) were able to vote by using forged voter identification documents (called 1018 Forms) which were methodically provided to them by local authorities controlled by the CPP by using names of these ghost voters. The NEC has in fact killed three birds with one stone: it has succeeded in cleverly reducing the opposition's votes to a large extent, fraudulently inflated the CPP's votes to the same extent, and maintained a decent rate of "voter" turnout.

The 1018 Form is a special voter identification document purportedly issued by local authorities for those who don't have any proper ID document. It is actually used by the holder as a voter card valid only in his/her commune of residence. It was the source of a massive election fraud at the July 27, 2008 poll.

To see a blank 1018 Form with English translation please click at http://tinyurl.com/4b3jyb

Evidence of fraud

The following are examples of pre-signed and pre-stamped empty 1018 Forms issued by CPP commune chiefs all over Cambodia. The documents were prepared in advance in order to be fraudulently filled out by CPP local authorities by using ghost voters' names and immediately given to illegitimate voters on Voting Day. Please click at http://tinyurl.com/5v9xbe

From countless communes we have collected bunches of such pre-signed and pre-stamped empty 1018 Forms, which shows the general pattern of a massive election fraud. As a matter of fact, forged 1018 Forms were methodically and systematically issued throughout the country in order to substantially inflate the number of votes for the CPP.

To see a sample of some 200 ready-to-be-used 1018 Forms collected from all parts of Cambodia, which were fraudulently filled out using ghost voters' names, please click at http://tinyurl.com/6cmh94

Each case shows the real identity of an illegitimate voter as shown in his/her ID card as well as the fake identity given to him/her as shown on the forged 1018 Form. Both documents show the same photo of the same person.

Most of those forged documents were filled out with a lot of breathtaking mistakes such as in the case presented at http://tinyurl.com/57vdu8

We will present many more cases like that in the coming days.

An independent report on the issue of the 1018 Form can be read at http://tinyurl.com/5eo33w

The issuing of 1018 Forms by the CPP authorities did have a big impact on the election results. As few as five forged 1018 Forms per polling station unfairly deprived the Opposition of one National Assembly seat as shown at http://tinyurl.com/4275dz

For more evidence of election rigging nationwide by the CPP-controlled National Election Committee, please click at http://tinyurl.com/4eegak

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