Was your Reform candidate a fake?

[noblegiraffe]

We know that the election was called unexpectedly and that small parties had to rush around last minute to find people to stand in all the constituencies. We know that Reform had problems with (lack of) vetting and some of theirs had to be dropped mid-campaign due to being problematic.

I saw a couple of amusing videos on twitter about someone worried that their Glaswegian Reform candidate Helen Burns didn't actually exist
https://x.com/kbfilms92/status/1808772750938448124?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g
https://x.com/kbfilms92/status/1808857245456773492?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

This morning I see that the North Northumberland Reform candidate Katherine Hales was suspiciously absent from all proceedings.

https://x.com/josiahmortimer/status/1809583328049168541?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

Clifford Ronald Thomas Bond in York Central also had no photos and the same generic leaflet as Helen Burns.

Helen Burns got 1655 votes, Katherine Hales got 7688 votes, Cliff Bond got 4721 votes. These start stacking up when you are talking about vote share and they're not the only missing candidates.

Did your Reform candidate appear to be a real person standing for election? Are there rules requiring people standing for election to actually do anything apart from be a name on paper? It seems suspicious, particularly if that party is now banging on about their vote share, if it came via dodgy means.

Agree. Don’t people think that had there been a sniff of fraud with candidates, that it would have been exposed and headline news? Especially with parties like Reform? If a headline and proof comes out, I’ll believe. But not going to believe conspiracy theories on MN I’m afraid.

That's not airbrushing.

I've noticed that people are shockingly bad at spotting AI on twitter. Posts of some ridiculous house or cosy reading nook or meal that are obviously fake get loads of responses of 'that looks marvellous'.

Reform had 609 candidates.

You understand what a paper candidate is?

Our candidate came from the next (posher) constituency. Meanwhile their candidate came from 100 miles away!

He is a self styled enemy of the elite but supposedly a corporate financier, not sure why he has chosen to work and live amongst them except his wife has a business that decorates very very posh houses.

He was also a full on conspiracy nut, Google him and you get all the usual anti vax, covid and climate change denying, pro Putin nonsense that he has spread across the internet wherever he could find a site that would publish it (including of course GB news). The suspicion is they thought the posh suburb was less likely to fall for it, and he would find more conspiracy nuts amongst us.

His predicted vote halved to 4000 votes and at the count it was observed that many of the crosses on his votes were in black felt pen, apparently a conspiracy theory that MI5 (who must be very well staffed across the country) rub out the pencil votes that the elite /WEF etc. don’t like. Bless!

He claims that he is part of a new resurgence but he only just surpassed the UKIP vote in 2015 (that candidate was so crazy his rantings and threats to sue everyone in sight made the pages of Private Eye). So he is just part of the old surgence that has managed to replace the votes of the racists who died off with people who have fallen down the internet conspiracy black holes.

I watched a youtube video this recently. Both hilarious and terrifying. It leads into the Dead Internet theory because as well as content being AI generated all the replies are AI bots. So endless bots talking to each other forever.

Mark Matlock was his own election agent ....
https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2024-06/Notice%20of%20Election%20Agents%20Names%20and%20Offices%20Clapham%20and%20Brixton%20Hill.pdf
Here are the people who nominated him
https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2024-06/Statement%20of%20Perons%20Nominated%2C%20Notice%20of%20Poll%20and%20Situation%20of%20Polling%20Stations%20Clapham%20and%20Brixton%20Hill.pdf

The same documents are public for all constituencies
If you suspect fraud, PLEASE report it

https://x.com/conspirator0?t=jnlMgcpQ5ROeHvQURbLLGQ&s=09

"His" right ear looks suss as well. Either AI generated face or clumsy photo shopping. This Twitter account is good for explaining AI faces and accounts.

Thanks for this thread OP. I saw a similar one on reddit yesterday where someone had reported their local Reform paper candidate to the electoral commission. Very serious and it has Russia written all over it. All the minimising ("it wasn't all the reform the candidates") and strategic cynicism ("all politicians are the same anyway") on this thread just proves that Putin's methods work.

GB only has 632 constituencies, and one of those is the Speaker’s constituency.

Reform fielded candidates in 96% of GB seats.

I’m not saying the candidates didn’t exist.

I’m saying that it looks as if some of them were paper candidates.

That’s unnecessary, and has nothing to do with Reform or electoral fraud.

Agreed.

Good heavens! That looks like it could be a huge poster in a 'Leaders' series from, er, somewhere...

Study the party. Cherish the party. Follow the party.

"Mark Matlock" on twitter is posting all sorts of things about how great Reform are.

What he notably isn't doing is posting any pictures of himself to prove that the candidate picture is of him.

But it looks like some of the Reform candidates may NOT have been real people.

Monitoring officers are very stretched - they may not have done full due diligence on the candidacy papers.
If reform abused that then we have an issue.

Someone appears to be operating a twitter account in the name Mark Matlock, but that doesn't mean that Mark Matlock is a real person.

Candidates in my constituency and the one next to us are definitely real and well known locally. Both polled very well considering one area returned a Conservative and the other Labour

AND another poster bites the dust. Weird.

Phantom MN posters are a Thing too, it seems