A researcher was able to cast a false vote at 50PLUS last weekend during a digital general meeting of the elderly party. The party confirms this to NU.nl after reporting the WE.
Among other things, a new party chairman was elected during the meeting. This was done digitally because of the corona virus. According to Robert Gielisse, acting party secretary at the time of the meeting, in one case someone “jumped through the checks”.
The researcher would have cast one vote: blank. “During checks, seventeen people were taken out who were not members,” says Gielisse. Due to a “human error” in the check, one person could still vote. “That is regrettable.”
The party says it has checked the participating members twice. First, all email addresses of party members who participated were checked. The researcher got through that. After that there was a random check, in which 40 percent of the registrations were checked by telephone. “If no errors are detected, you can say on the basis of statistical probability that the rest is also okay,” says Gielisse.
No modifications to the system
According to the WE the researcher informed 50PLUS in advance that the election could be subject to manipulation. He said he did not use the name of a member when filling in a name. He also did not enter his phone number.
50PLUS argues that there was no influence, because only one blank vote was cast by a non-member. The new chairman of the party, Jan Nagel, calls it “a trifle”. According to Gielisse, the system used will not be modified. “That works properly, it was a human error.”
The party organized the vote after party chairman Henk Krol and party chairman Geert Dales left earlier this year. NRC already wrote about “hassle at 50PLUS” because of digital voting. That would be a barrier for many party members.
Election CDA can also be influenced earlier
It is the second time this year that an online election at a political party could be influenced. The same thing happened recently at CDA, during the selection of a new party leader. This vote therefore had to pass.
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