[Lamplighter]

Washington Post
10/9/13
Oops: Azerbaijan released election results before voting had even started

Azerbaijan's big presidential election, held on Wednesday,
was anticipated to be neither free nor fair.
President Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father 10 years ago,
has stepped up intimidation of activists and journalists.
<snip>
Even still, one expects a certain ritual in these sorts of authoritarian elections,
a fealty to at least the appearance of democracy, if not democracy itself.

So it was a bit awkward when Azerbaijan's election authorities released vote results
– a full day before voting had even started.

The vote counts – Aliyev was shown as winning by a landslide –
were pushed out on an official smartphone app run by the Central Election Commission.
It showed Aliyez as "winning" with 72.76 percent of the vote.
That's on track with his official vote counts in previous elections:
he won ("won"?) 76.84 percent of the vote in 2003 and
87 percent in 2008.