Election fraud scandal in local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia! Police raid several buildings
Serious allegations of election fraud have emerged in North Rhine-Westphalia after authorities discovered what appears to be a widespread operation to falsify mail-in ballots in Cologne. According to the police, hundreds of ballots are alleged to have been tampered with during the Cologne integration council elections.
On Thursday morning, the police carried out simultaneous raids at 16 locations, including apartments, association offices, and care homes in Cologne and the Rheinisch-Bergisch and Oberbergisch districts. The operation targeted ten suspects, most of whom are of Russian origin. Investigators seized several mobile phones and data storage devices as part of the investigation.
Authorities suspect that the group fraudulently submitted requests for absentee ballots on behalf of real Russian-speaking voters. Instead of sending them to the voters' homes, the ballots were directed to associations and care services linked to the suspects. From these locations, about 400 apparently forged ballots were returned to the city election office, all in favor of a candidate from a small party.
The election office had already discovered the violations on the day of the election itself and immediately notified the police. The forged documents were quickly handed over to the investigators who confirmed that the mail-in voting oversight mechanisms in the city had detected the suspicious ballots in a timely manner. Subsequently, search warrants were issued by the public prosecutor's office.
Officials confirmed that the attempted fraud could have serious implications, as the integration council elections have a much smaller voter base than general local elections, meaning that a few hundred votes could significantly change the results. In the final tally, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) emerged as the strongest party in the integration council elections in Cologne with 26.86 percent of the votes, equivalent to 14,961 votes.