Social media users have shared posts claiming that machines from Dominion Voting Systems were used in Myanmar’s general election in 2020, suggesting that this is related to the allegations of electoral fraud made by the country’s army when he seized power in a military coup on Feb. 1, 2021. Dominion Voting Systems confirmed that the claim was untrue, and the election of Myanmar was conducted with paper votes counted by hand, not electronically, making this link illogical.
The posts (here, here , here , t.me/greatawakeninggenhyt/896, here, here and here) makes a comparison with the USA by saying “The Burmese army has arrested their countries [sic] leaders for election fraud. And they used Dominion Machines. Are you still paying attention? ”; “Myanmar used Dominion Voting Systems”; or “Military takes the lead … Election fraud … They use Dominion voting machines … Deja vu.”
After the US general election in November 2020, multiple false allegations about Dominion spread on social media. Some Reuters fact checks unraveling this misinformation can be seen here, here and here.
In December 2020, a senior employee of Dominion Voting Systems sued Trump’s re-election campaign, including attorney Sidney Powell and the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, in a Colorado court for defamation and spreading false conspiracy theories that Trump is against Joe Biden lost in November’s presidential presidency. election (here).
A Dominion Voting Systems spokesman told Reuters these latest reports were another false allegation circulating on social media.
Samira Saba, a spokeswoman for Smartmatic, an electronic voice technology and services company, also reported with Dominion on some social media, confirming to Reuters that their services would not be used during the Myanmar general election either: ‘ Smartmatic had no involvement in the Myanmar 2020 elections. In fact, Smartmatic has never provided any election technology or services to authorities in that country. Any claim to the contrary is simply false. ”
In Myanmar, leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior figures of the ruling party were detained in an early morning attack on February 1, 2020. The move came after Myanmar’s powerful army worried about a coup last week after it threatened to ‘take action’ over alleged fraud in a November election that Suu Kyi won the National League for Democracy (NLD). has. Here is a statement from Reuters about the coup in Myanmar visible.
Myanmar’s election commission on January 28 rejected the country’s army’s allegations of vote fraud in last year’s election, saying there were no errors large enough to affect the credibility of the vote (here).
“In this election, weaknesses and mistakes in the voter lists cannot cause vote fraud,” the commission said in a six-page statement on its Facebook page, adding that the vote took place transparently in front of election observers. It is said to be investigating 287 complaints and that errors such as duplicate names appeared in some lists, but that voters could no longer vote with the fingers marked with indelible ink.
A Reuters correspondent from Burma in Myanmar explained to the Fact Check team that no election-related technology was used during the 2020 Myanmar general election. They said: “it was paper votes counted by hand.”
According to a report on the 2020 general election in Myanmar, compiled by The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), a Stockholm-based international organization led by the ‘commitment to the rule of law, human rights, the basic principles of democratic pluralism and the strengthening of democracy ”(www.idea.int/about-us), an election-related technology was not used at all in the Southeast Asian country.
The voting process is set out in section 14 on pages 19 to 23 of the EU-funded publication here. The process gives an explanation of how the paper votes had to be counted by hand.
VERDICT
Untrue. Dominion Voting Systems has confirmed that it does not work in Myanmar. In addition, Dominion provides electronic counting mechanisms for elections and the general ballot papers of Myanmar were counted by hand.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to actually check social media posts.
Update February 3: This article has been updated to include comments from a Reuters correspondent on the voting process during the Myanmar general election.
Update February 4: this article has been updated to include Smartmatic confirmation in paragraph 6.