2003 Tierradorian voter suppression scandal

The 2003 Tierradorian general election voter suppression scandal is a political scandal stemming from events that took place during the 2003 Tierradorian general election, which saw PP candidate Victoría Hombêri defeat incumbent PST candidate Aphía Monderí in one of the most controversial elections in Tierradorian history. It involved numerous robocalls and real-person calls that originated from the Partéq Pepal’s campaign office, vote buying from the PP and the TCU, and the rejection of absentee ballots in 6 regions. These were all mostly designed to result in voter suppression, except for the absentee ballots scandal, which was mainly done to comply with the laws implemented in said 6 regions. Investigations from the Civil Guard and Elections Terranóq were made to respond to claims that the PP was using robocalls and real-person calls to falsely inform voters that the location of their area’s polling stations have been changed.

Calls began in Tabía, Lakawachee on April 5, 2003, 1 week before Election Day. The Lakawachee State Patrol (LSP) discovered an automated calling machine in the San Cristóbal PP headquarters which they believed to be the source of said robocalls. By April 8, 2003, Elections Terranóq had received complaints detailing irregular calls from the PP in 356 of the 420 ridings in Tierrador, recorded in all 25 regions. The scandal received widespread attention throughout Crona, and resulted in various arrests, lawsuits, and condemnations from other South and Central Cronan nations, along with widespread rioting in Lakawachee stemming from Hombêri’s victory.

Fraudulent calls in Tabía

Fraudulent calls were first reported on April 5, 2003, however most of these calls dated back to as far as November 2002. Residents of Tabía, Lakawachee, began receiving calls from an automated telephone number which called itself “Pierre,” wrongfully informing voters that their local polling station had been changed to different locations across Lakawachee. This was regarded as unusual to voters as most Tierradorian government agencies never call citizens to notify them of information such as this, solely contacting by postal mail. Some of these station changes ranged from different places in Tabía (i.e. Arcer Terrace Mall to Tabía North High School), to having voters drive to San Cristóbal, which is a 1 hour and 20 minute drive from Tabía. One voter reported their location being changed to Anders, Anbarsky.

On April 6, 2003, Elections Terranóq, along with the Lakawachee State Patrol, began an investigation in Tabía, questioning close to 450 people who received calls from the mysterious number. What they were not aware of is that while the calls came from 8 different numbers, they all originated in Santa Cruz, given that all of the numbers began with area code 414, meanwhile Tabía was assigned the area code 856. One Lakawachee State Trooper recognized one of the numbers as the Partéq Pepal Lakawachee headquarters, introducing the PP as a possible suspect for these calls. On the April 6 president debate, Victoría Hombêri was questioned about the robocalls, to which she explained that the calls did not come from her or the PP, and then accused the PST and Aphía Monderíq of attempting a smear campaign against the PP.

The morning of April 7, 2003, Lakawachee State Troopers investigating in the PP’s Santa Cruz headquarters entered a large hidden janitor’s closet, where they discovered three computers automating spam calls, along with Tierradorian census records detailing the voting patterns of 430,000 Lakawachee residents. Later that same day, an advisory message had been issued to Lakawachee-based radio and television stations. It was then determined that the calls were directed towards three groups: Early voters, voters registered under PST, PCq, and AVA, and ethnic Coscivian voters. These were meant to dissuade residents of said groups from going to vote by falsely changing their polling station to an outrageous alternative. In response to this, the PP disabled the computers and closed their San Cristóbal office until April 15, three days after Election Day. Despite this, on April 7–9, 2003, Elections Terranóq received calls from various electoral districts in Mainland Tierrador detailing similar fraudulent robocalls.

Fraudulent calls across Tierrador

In the early days of the Scandal, most of the calls were only reported in the region of Lakawachee, with a few also coming in from fellow island region Sonaxa. However, on April 7, 2003, Elections Terranóq reported complaints from 79 ridings, across 6 regions. This was the first wave of misleading calls from outside of Lakawachee, and they all consisted of the same messages from the Lakawachee calls. When meeting with Hombêri about the robocalls, PCq presidential candidate Marvín Tobekee described her behavior as "strange" and "seemed like she knew what was going on". By April 8, 2003, close to 1.3 million voters from 291 electoral districts filed complaints with Elections Terranóq, detailing fraudulent calls with outrageous contexts.

Once Election Day came around, 326 of 420 ridings had reported misleading calls. For the first time in Tierradorian history, early voting, which was supposed to occur on April 9, was suspended, creating outrage throughout the entire nation, as most voters were unable to vote on April 12, and early voting was the only way that close to 2.4 million citizens could vote. The ATC called this a "slap in the face to democracy", as ethic Coscivian voters made up 91% of that 2.4 million number. It sparked protests in cities with a large Coscivian population, such as Taisgol, Qabór, and Ambaqwe.

Throughout Tierrador, these fraudulent robocalls had a significant impact on voters' perceptions of the electoral system. Many voters became apprehensive about trusting any information they received through phone calls, making it challenging for legitimate political campaigns and election officials to communicate effectively with the public. The lack of trust in information sources led to widespread confusion and, in some cases, apathy towards the electoral process. The alarming scale of these calls raised questions about the vulnerability of Tierrador's communication infrastructure and the need for stronger safeguards to protect citizens from such malicious activities. It also highlighted the importance of robust legislation to penalize those engaged in electoral fraud and disinformation campaigns. Companies such as Orixtal Communications and TerraTel were subsequently sued by Elections Terranóq in December 2003, for allowing the robocalls to continue despite them knowing of said calls.

Arcergate

An investigation in November 2004 uncovered the use of vote-buying by Partéq Pepal and the Tierradorian Conservatives Union. As evidence of an alleged fraud surfaced and pointed towards the PRI buying votes by providing voting citizens with store credit cards of Tierradorian department store chain Arcer Court. Elections Terranóq confirmed in January 2005 that the TCU and PP spent $7.5 million in electronic cards throughout their entire campaign. Opposition parties (and both the TCU and PP amongst themselves) complained that this represented a form of illicit funding, but both parties claimed the contrary. They claimed that the electronic cards were actually intended for party personnel, but this method rose suspicions because some of the money was transacted through "several shadowy companies instead of being disbursed directly from party coffers." This also increased the suspicions that the TCU had received illegal donations from various domestic and international corporations (given that this move is prohibited under law).

The store credit cards typically had a balance of $250, and these forms of vote-buying were targeted towards lower-class citizens. This won close to 600,000 votes for the PP and 432,000 for the TCU. In ridings where the final results were determined by 1,000 votes or less for the PP/TCU, said scandal, on top of the robocalls, sparked massive outrage and voters, along with opposition politicians, called for the removal of Victoría Hombêri. This vote-buying scandal was dubbed Arcergate, due to the supposed involvement of Arcer Court in the scandal. Arcer Court denied any involvement and subsequently canceled their pre-paid cards program until 2009. Regardless, Arcer Court was involved in numerous lawsuits, by opposition parties and groups of voters affected by the scandals.

Absentee ballots

During the 2003 General Election, 74 out of the 101 provinces accepted absentee ballots from April 7 to April 12, 2003, to ensure that all registered voters would be equally represented, regardless of their ability to cast their votes in person. However, the remaining 27 provinces (23 determined by regional law), disallowed voters to request mail-in absentee ballots unless there was a valid condition for not being able to vote. While there were calls for the imperial government to step in and force the 27 provinces to comply with absentee voting laws, not much was done to mitigate the situation due to the provinces declaring a legal justification for the declining of absentee ballots. This caused close to 216,000 voters not being able to cast their ballot, due to unforeseen circumstances.

Aftermath

Public riots

On April 12th, 2003, Victoría Hombêri won the 2003 General Election by a close popular vote, a 957,208-vote margin of victory over Aphía Monderí. When asked about the various controversies, Monderí stated she believed that there was “100% something strange going on”, and that Hombêri’s victory was not a truly genuine victory. Monderí called for Woqala Mokhar II to lead an investigation against Hombêri, however there was not enough evidence for the Woqala to begin said investigation. Following this, violent riots broke out in San Cristóbal, Lakawachee, and soon spread out to various cities in Southern Tierrador to protest against Hombêri and the PP. Similarly, much more peaceful protests broke out in Taisgol and Hugo to protest the alleged media bias by TBS and Network3 in favor of Hombêri and the PP. While said networks delegated the protests and riots as similar occurrences, protesters in Taisgol further reiterated that they had nothing to do with the Lakawachee riots, and that the Lakawachee riots were of different cultural significance. When Hombêri was sworn in on May 1, 2003, 1,500 students in Taisgol stood outside of the Presidential Palace to protest the inauguration, leading to 577 arrests made, which sparked international condemnation from various Cronan and Occidental nations, and leading to the creation of the Suneqeš 577 movement (lit. We are 577) to combat corruption in Tierrador and the world.

Arrests and lawsuits

In response to the scandals, the Civil Guard and Elections Terranóq arrested nearly 60 people for corruption or conspiring for corruption. Along with this, Elections Terranóq, AVA, ATC, and many individual voters filed lawsuits against the PP, TCU, Arcer Court, Orixtal Communications, the Salgar, Obiexa, Tauekee, and Youkafee Provinces, along with Auqali, Aracadó and Polelu Regions for voter suppression, an ordeal which lasted until 2009, when PP, TCU, and Orixtal Communications were fined ₽156 million each as compensation for their involvements in the voter suppression scandal.