Widespread voter fraud and technical problems threaten the credibility of the vote for the World Zionist Congress, several sources close to the elections have told The Times of Israel.

The sources said more than 10,200 votes, or about 6% of the total ballots cast thus far, are at risk of being tossed out due to suspicions of fraud. These votes allegedly benefited six of the 22 parties running for election.

Concerns have also been raised that the vote management platform used by the American Zionist Organization (AZM), the organization administering the election, is outdated and may be unfit for the balloting.

Cheating has been rife throughout the two-month election, which ends May 4. In one such instance, sources said, a party running for election told the AZM that it was approached by someone who said they were generating votes for other parties for a fee of $50 apiece.

A failure to deal properly with the alleged fraud cases could be a “disaster” that would undermine the credibility of the elections, which help determine how billions of dollars a year are allocated to various Jewish and Israeli causes, the sources said.

Early signs of a problem emerged in early April, when the AZM said it was investigating nearly 2,000 suspicious votes. Sources indicated at the time that these votes benefited the slates of Haredi Eretz Hakodesh, associated with Israel’s Haredi United Torah Judaism party, and Am Yisrael Chai, an Orthodox party targeting young voters.

Many of these votes were allegedly cast within minutes of each other from identical locations, using suspicious pre-paid credit cards and unverifiable contact details.

At the time, eJewishPhilanthropy reported that many of the suspected votes came from six locations whose addresses matched yeshivas in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, and that all the prepaid credit cards were issued by TransPecos Bank and Pathward.

It was in the course of investigating these votes that the Area Election Committee (AEC), which is charged with overseeing the election, discovered that there were many more suspicious votes than originally thought, The Times of Israel was told. In an emergency meeting called late last week, the sources said, the AEC revealed that some 10,200 votes were being investigated, cast for six different unidentified slates.

“We were shocked,” one source said. “This election needs to be run on a secure voting platform that prevents voter fraud. If it’s not blocking hundreds of votes coming within minutes from the same IP address, what kind of security does it have? There is systemic cheating throughout the system.”

AZM said it was working to address the issues and had taken on forensic experts and counsel. It also claimed that the suspicious votes constituted “a small fraction” of a “record-setting” online vote.

“The American Zionist Movement (AZM) and........

© The Times of Israel