The General Election Commission (GEC) convened discussing results of the 2020 parliamentary election and issuing a resolution to confirm candidates elected as members of Parliament on June 25.
Moreover, it was resolved to hand over identification cards to elected members of Parliament on June 29 and submit it to Parliament. Afterwards, the bill will be submitted to President Kh.Battulga.
Chairman of the GEC Ch.Sodnomtseren said, “Following the completion of the voting process, polling stations were randomly selected by political party and coalition observers for a control census.”
“After the closure of polls, 41 percent of the 2,070 polling stations conducted control census, and the results were unchanged,” he added.
However, some independent candidates, political parties and coalitions believe that the voting machine may have been hacked during the 2020 parliamentary election.
‘This election was rigged’
Independent candidates demanded that Chairman of the Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) U.Khurelsukh to compete fairly and for the GEC to re-organize the election.
Independent candidate who ran in Songinokhairkhan District S.Munkhchuluun said, “There are two big facts that prove that this election was rigged. First, the number of votes of independent candidates had a comma. Second, there were complaints that two to three strangers were registered at the same household address.”
“During the preliminary counting process, candidate from MPP N.Uchral received 13,300 votes from the first five polling stations. Songinokhairkhan District has 59 polling stations and a total of 111,000 voters. In other words, an average of 1,800 voters were registered in one polling station. Assuming that all voters in the first five polling stations voted for N.Uchral, the number of votes should be around 9,000. However, this actual number is not 9,000, but 13,300, which indicates that the voting machine was in trouble.”
A.Saruul who ran in Sukhbaatar District said, “I received a lot of reports on conflict from Facebook messenger. So I documented and collected some information. In particular, someone said that one man related to MPP brought a hacker from Russia to hack a voting machine. ‘It is a clear that MPP will win this election,’ someone said. Therefore, I think that it is right to cancel this election and restart polling.”
Political parties and coalitions demand second polling
The Democratic Party (DP) have called on the president to re-organize the election.
DP has established a working group to conduct a control census in 29 constituencies as a result of the 2020 parliamentary election. Member of DP D.Odkhuu said that a total of 29 constituencies were monitored for complaints and information related to the election process, and this election violated the rights of citizens to vote and to be voted for.
According to DP, there were many serious irregularities during this election. For example, DP claimed that one person voted multiple times, using a false address or an apartment address that did not exist at all, one individual voted from abroad, and many voters were falsely registered on an existing address.
Political parties, coalitions, and DP believe that the truth needs to be established immediately as the people distrust election results and procedure.
You Are Our Coalition (YAOC) and United Citizens Coalition’s Party (UCCP) demanded to re-run the election fairly due to problems with changing the number of votes of independent candidates and commas on reported amount of votes.
They noted that in previous elections, finger print was used to verify voters and ballots were numbered. However, this year, it was not.
Head of UCCP J.Batzandan said, “The voter list includes the names of 15,000 to 20,000 people who are not in the voter list. The votes for independent candidates were halved. We can lose. We cannot accept a fraud.”
On June 28, political parties, coalitions and independent candidates held a press briefing on election results.
Candidate from UCCP Ts.Battuya said, “The control census is in process in a total of 29 constituencies to finalize the results of this parliamentary election. However, the workers in the polling stations are clearly serving the ruling party and violating the law. For example, no sealed ballots are being counted. Also observers from other parties and coalitions are shown from a distance. Moreover, chairmen of polling stations do not make corrective notes if the numbers are incorrect.”
Head of YAOC N.Enkhbayar said that they demand resignation of the entire composition of the GEC and the new members of Parliament should not to be sworn in until the results of the control census are officially announced.
Some candidates, political parties and coalitions meet with GEC
Representatives of political parties, coalitions and independent candidates competed in this election met with the GEC on June 27.
Independent candidate T.Ganbold said, “Votes were cast without a unified number. One citizen was registered in many places and the GEC provided the opportunity to vote many times. As a result, more than 249,000 people voted more, which affected the election results.”
“There is a case where filled out ballots were given together with clean ballots. This conflict is not related to voting machines. Therefore, we demand to re-organize the election,” he added.
“Across the country, all independent candidates’ vote numbers appeared with commas. The GEC said that it is a mistake of the voting machine.”
T.Ganbold asked that why the GEC accepted this erroneous voting.
GEC responded, “The counting machine prints results without connection of any network. The result comes to our central server. It comes through a secure network and a secure file without anyone's involvement. It takes 10 days for a high-powered computer to open the file. Processing is also done by the server itself. Processing was exported in excel. At the time, some came out with millennial accuracy. There is nothing wrong with that.”
The complainants noted that the GEC does not have the authority to investigate violations. However, ballots can be recounted manually. Ballots were recounted at 22 percent of the capital city polling stations.
Mongolian People’s Party supports control census
MPP submitted a proposal to GEC on June 27 calling for a recount of ballots to dispel doubts of some parties and independent candidates.
For instance, in accordance with Article 71.14, 71.15, 71.16, 71.17 and 71.18 of the Law on Elections of Mongolia, up to 50 percent of all polling stations in soum and district election committees were subjected to control census.
President orders GEC to address doubts about election results
President Kh.Battulga met with members of the GEC to discuss conflicts regarding election results on June 27.
Some independent candidates, political parties and coalitions submitted a demand to re-organize the election to the president. In this regard, the president raised the issue and said that the disputed issue should be resolved by conducting a manual control census in accordance with the law.
He expressed the view that a manual control census be conducted in a transparent manner in the presence of the intelligence agency, the police, the media, and the candidates who have filed complaints and requests on June 27 and 28.
It was also agreed that a control census should be conducted in the disputed constituencies, not only at random, but also at the request of candidates.
Moreover, the president sent an official letter to the GEC on this issue on the same day.
Control census
Following complaints from some parties, coalitions and candidates related to the results of the 2020 parliamentary elections addressed to the president of Mongolia and the GEC, as well as the instructions given by the president to the GEC, additional control censuses are being conducted in Dornod, Uvurkhangai, Arkhangai, Umnugovi, and Darkhan-Uul provinces.
As of 1:00 p.m. on June 28, a control census was in process in Darkhan-Uul. As for Dornod, the control census matched the results announced by the GEC.
In accordance with the regulation on conducting the control census approved by the GEC, the control census were conducted in a transparent before June 28 in the presence of representatives of political parties, coalitions, independent candidates, and the media.
