‘SWAP THE NUMBERS’

Belarus Poll Workers Break Silence on Fraud at Disputed Presidential Election

One voting place staffer said they pointed out violations during the vote-counting and were immediately fired.

People who counted ballots in last month’s disputed election in Belarus have spoken openly about the fraud and falsified results they witnessed on the controversial night. Three weeks ago, the election kept President Alexander Lukashenko in power with a landslide win—but hundreds of thousands of people have since taken to the streets to protest what they say was a rigged outcome. The Associated Press has spoken to a poll worker in Minsk who said she was asked to sign and endorse a document with the vote totals left blank. Another worker said they pointed out violations during the vote-counting and were immediately fired from their job. Andrei Gnidenko, who worked at a poll in the small city of Vitebsk, said he signed off on what he believes was a severe undercount of opposition votes. “I decided that since I betrayed the Belarusian people, since I took part in this rigging and put my signature on it, it was my duty to honestly tell it,” he said. A recording from another polling station contains a suggestion from an official that poll workers “swap the numbers” for Lukashenko and opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.