BN fans finagle White House petition, get caught
American authorities may have heard the numerous complaints about possible fraud in the Malaysian electoral system but the superpower got a firsthand taste of it after BN supporters tried to defraud a White House petition.
The petition titled: ‘Respecting the Sovereign Nation of Malaysia’ was aimed at countering a petition started by former US ambassador to Malaysia John Malott demanding the US make the freeing of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim a foreign policy priority.
American authorities may have heard the numerous complaints about possible fraud in the Malaysian electoral system but the superpower got a firsthand taste of it after BN supporters tried to defraud a White House petition.
The petition titled: ‘Respecting the Sovereign Nation of Malaysia’ was aimed at countering a petition started by former US ambassador to Malaysia John Malott demanding the US make the freeing of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim a foreign policy priority.
"On March 9, White House standard fraud checks indicated a high number of anomalous signatures on the petition titled ‘Respecting the Sovereign Nation of Malaysia’.
"After a follow-up evaluation, the White House has disabled the petition while it removes a number of signatures that violated the ‘We the People’ terms of participation," the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur said in a Facebook posting this morning.
When the counter-petition was restored, some 60,000 signatures deemed fraudulent were removed, leaving it with only some 12,000 signatures left.
The counter-petition demanded the US respect Malaysia's sovereignty and not question the Federal Court decision to jail Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim on Feb 10.
Petition surpasses target
Both BN and opposition Pakatan Rakyat supporters have aggressively promoted their respective petitions on social media.
The petitions, hosted on the White House's website , aim to get at least 100,000 signatures each, which will in turn prompt an official response from the US.
The pro-Anwar petition yesterday also hit with a fraud check and was briefly removed.
"There were multiple petitions related to this issue, and after follow-up assessment, The White House determined that the petition it removed was not the one that contained fraudulent signatures," said the US Embassy referring to the pro-Anwar petition.
The pro-Anwar petition was eventually restored with all its signatures intact and has since exceeded 100,000.
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