Azerbaijan held a presidential election on Wednesday, but before the first ballot was cast, the Central Election Commission released the election results by mistake. President Ilham Aliyev, who has been in office for ten years after succeeding his father, won in a landslide with 72% of the vote. Jamil Hasanli came in second with 7.4% of votes cast -even before the polls opened. Oops.
The data were quickly recalled. The official story is that the app's developer had mistakenly sent out the 2008 election results as part of a test. But that's a bit flimsy, given that the released totals show the candidates from this week, not from 2008.
No one in Azerbaijan was particularly surprised by the "results," but it was bad form to make the rigged vote so obvious to the world. After going through the motions of the election, the updated results show Aliyev now with 80% of votes cast. -via Daily of the Day
(Image credit: Flickr user World Economic Forum)