An Italian electoral official denied Tuesday that votes cast by Italians living abroad had gone missing during the country's recent legislative election, pushing back against fraud allegations raised by defeated Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Claudio Fancelli, who oversees the office responsible for expatriate ballots, said procedures were followed precisely and that the number of polling cards received from Italian consulates matched those processed by his office.
Berlusconi had alleged widespread irregularities in the overseas vote count and raised the possibility of seeking to invalidate those ballots entirely. A Forza Italia party official separately claimed that roughly 38,500 votes from Switzerland were unaccounted for.
Berlusconi has refused to concede defeat after the election delivered a narrow victory to centre-left coalition leader Romano Prodi, and has called for a recount of approximately 43,000 overseas ballots.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in April 2006, in its own words.