Advertisement

Azerbaijan ballot app purportedly shows results before voting even starts

Many have accused Azerbaijan's government of running a fake democracy, and the administration hasn't helped its image with its official election app for Android and iOS. Citizens who downloaded the client were surprised to get supposedly final election results a day before voting even began. As the results showed President Aliyev winning by a landslide, critics like Meydan TV were quick to cite the app as "proof" that the election was rigged; officials just revealed their ploy too quickly. There's no hard evidence to support the accusations, however. While few believe the developer's claims that it accidentally released 2008 data as part of a test (the candidates are from 2013), the software gives Aliyev a smaller lead than the official results show as of this writing. So, it appears that any ballot stuffing likely took place outside of the app, then. More than anything, the snafu underscores the importance of quality control -- in the wrong circumstances, a flawed app can result in more than just a few annoyed users.