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The Catalan Independence Referendum of Oct 1, 2017, certainly has problems enough (deemed illegal beforehand, low participation, police conflicts, etc.), but apart from that - was there voter fraud

Examples:

Brythan
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Hagen von Eitzen
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  • Maybe I should add that I am motivated to ask the question because by anecdotal evidence, I know that voters were supposed to be checked against an online database and that the voting process had to be interrupted at those times when the required online connection was under attack ... So either this is not true, or was not handled properly in significantly many places, or the fraudsters (whose intent at least for the example pictures seems to have been to invalidate the outcome) knew when the connection was unavailable and they could succeed... – Hagen von Eitzen Nov 04 '17 at 18:50
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    Based on what little I read, the referendum was rather loosely organized and poorly supervised, in large part due to the opposition of the federal government. And, reportedly, turnout was quite low. It's reasonable to question the validity of the event as a plebiscite, regardless of any actual malfeasance. (Do note that the "multiple voting" in the photos may well have been staged, however. "Oh, I forgot to have my friend here take a picture of me when I voted earlier. Can we do that now while I pretend to vote?") – Daniel R Hicks Nov 05 '17 at 00:12
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    Your question asks if there was voter fraud. Then you answer your question by showing two examples of voter fraud. So yes there was voter fraud. If you showed a notable claim that there was widespread voter fraud, this might be on topic. – BobTheAverage Nov 06 '17 at 20:32
  • I don't know how voting worked at that election, so I don't know if the following applies as fraud. El Pais reported that in 71 municipalities, there were more "yes" votes than voters : https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/10/03/catalunya/1507048467_326934.html – Samuel Churlaud Nov 07 '17 at 21:25
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    @BobTheAverage I think one has to ask whether the pictures do show voter fraud, and if they do, whether it the Catalonia election. The four way montage has nothing to indicate the shots are from Spain, and I am suspicious that the fire exit has no visible text. That said, I agree with the point that the answer to the question 'was there voter fraud?' is almost invariably yes. – richardb Nov 07 '17 at 23:07
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_referendum,_2017#Irregularities – Fizz Nov 08 '17 at 08:46
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    @SamuelChurlaud: That's a non-issue; there was a single universal census, so people was, in theory, allowed to vote wherever they choose. As many voting stations where closed by the police, lots of people just traveled to the closest open station. – Diego Sánchez Nov 09 '17 at 13:11
  • Those most motivated for separation voted which may be a biased result and those who wanted to stay were Sr. bank officials who are a minority. The issue is about unfair sharing of Federal taxes for infrastructure programs where Barcelona has becoime a major seaport and tourism magnet for income. – Tony Stewart EE75 Nov 09 '17 at 21:05
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    @richardb One urn on the lower right picture shows the Catalan "four stripes" symbol and all urns look like that (and that's what the urns actually looked like); other such collages show the proud fraudsters holding a current Spanish newspaper to prove their point. I didn't notice the exist sign - now that you mention it, it keeps looking photoshopped to me. What I find peculiar is that, while it is understandible that the guy never switched clothes, why did he not even find time to tug his shirt back while traveling between spots? – Hagen von Eitzen Nov 11 '17 at 10:17

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