The voting process for the presidential elections in Moldova was interrupted in Liverpool and Northampton (United Kingdom), as well as in Frankfurt (Germany), after reports of a bomb at the polling stations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Moldova, after verification by the special services, clarified that the alarm was false.
“Some time ago, authorities in Frankfurt (Germany), Liverpool and Northampton (United Kingdom) were notified that several polling stations had been mined. The specialized services of these countries have activated protocols on the alarm situation and have already completed an anti-terrorist control, reporting that the alarms turned out to be false.” – said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement.
The Foreign Ministry’s commentary notes that such messages were spread specifically to stop the voting process. After receiving them, the UK authorities evacuated the building to carry out inspections. Unlike the situation in Liverpool, the German police allowed the electoral process to continue after ensuring that there was no immediate threat.
Furthermore, at a polling station in Berlin, an unknown person broke the window of the embassy where voting takes place. The police arrived at the scene and arrested the man.
No such incidents occurred in Moldova itself. However, the CEC stated that the electronic voter registration system continues to be subject to cyber attacks, causing temporary difficulties in the exchange of participation information.
“In recent hours there have been coordinated cyber attacks on the data exchange infrastructure of the voter registration system. The attacks come from a variety of sources located in different countries around the world. “This creates temporary difficulties in obtaining information from polling stations both within the country and abroad.” — reported the press service of the department.
The Central Election Commission added that the voting results are summarized on the basis of data after manual processing of the polling station records. According to them, participation in the polling stations exceeded 50% and more than 1.5 million citizens have already voted in the presidential elections.
