The government of Spain announced today that it has introduced precautionary measures due to the possibility of the spread of fake news and disinformation after the polls closed in the extraordinary regional elections in Catalonia. Polling stations, which opened at 9.00:20.00 a.m., will be closed at 22.00:80 p.m. Immediately after the closing of the polls, the manual counting of votes will begin. The government commissioned the private association Indra to count the votes and announce the first unofficial results. Indra will announce the preliminary results gradually. It is predicted that about XNUMX percent of the votes will be counted around XNUMX:XNUMX p.m.
Officially, also manual counting will start only on December 24 and will last a maximum of three days. "The counting process will not be on a computer, so it will not be possible to disrupt that procedure. Everything will be done manually, on paper," sources close to the government said, adding that the decision was made due to the spread of fake news on the Internet and a disinformation campaign in the period since the shutdown. polling stations until the official results. The media will be notified if any sites publish fake news and will be told if they refer to such information.
The government insisted that only the state election commission can announce the official results. About 5,5 million voters are electing the new regional government of Catalonia today, after the previous one was replaced due to the unilateral declaration of independence of that region on October 27. The central authorities of Spain then dissolved the parliament and suspended the autonomy of Catalonia and introduced direct rule in that region.
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