WATCH: ‘Fake’ votes were used in naming of Aurigny plane
VOTING to name one the new Aurigny planes has been marred by the use of ‘fake’ online profiles.
The airline held a poll on Facebook for islanders to choose whether they wanted the new ATR aircraft to be named after the Guernsey Raiders rugby club, G-GRFC, or Guernsey Football Club, G-OGFC.
GFC was announced as the winner on Tuesday with around 3,500 votes to the Raiders’ 2,200.
But a video seen by the Guernsey Press appears to show hundreds of ‘fake’ Facebook accounts voting for GFC in the battle.
Aurigny has said it would not use this type of voting again, but is standing by the results because GFC was ahead before the suspicious activity came in.
Both sides attracted these votes.
The video shows a Facebook user scrolling through the list of accounts that voted for the rugby club. At regular intervals the user stops on an account and clicks on it. Although they were not always mutual friends, there were profile pictures and some information about the people.
However, when the user scrolled through the list of accounts that voted for GFC, hundreds in a row were without profile pictures and information and had names such as Kurnia Syavira, Arum Izhar, Hidayati Fajria, Finkha Rianita and Arfianti Damayanti.
Others were accounts with no profile pictures and no last names such as Ethelbert, Bardolf, Aprilicia, Monteacute and Roger.
Raiders head coach and director of rugby Jordan Reynolds said: ‘There’s 100% clear evidence that fake votes were put in.
‘I think we know who did it and we are taking [the complaint] through the right channels.’
Mr Reynolds said they believe more than a couple of thousand GFC votes were fake.
‘I know exactly how it was done and have pretty concrete knowledge who did it.’
Guernsey Raiders director Chris Gnapp is in charge of sponsorship for the team and said he was in talks with Aurigny about the issue.
‘Clearly from the video something is amiss, there are fake accounts on both sides, but the GFC ones clearly outweigh the Raiders ones.
‘We are in discussions with Aurigny to try and find a decent resolution for both sides.’
The poll has now been taken down off the Aurigny.com Facebook page so the lists of voters can no longer be seen.
A spokesperson for the airline said they were aware that there was a number of fake votes for both teams, but more for GFC.
‘We were monitoring the votes closely and have a note of the numbers before this event where GFC were leading, so we are confident in our decision to name the aircraft G-OGFC.
‘It is obviously disappointing for both clubs, their fans and Aurigny when dishonest behaviour occurs in such polls and we will not be using this platform in the future.’
Director of Guernsey FC Nic Legg said the club has a large online following who responded ‘fantastically’ to the poll.
‘Our Facebook page currently has nearly 6,000 followers, compared to the Raiders who have 2,000. We were leading the vote for the majority of the time the poll ran, it’s disappointing to hear the credibility of the poll is being questioned.’
Mr Legg said the team looked forward to working alongside Aurigny and hoped the allegation did not ‘take the shine off such a positive community engagement project’.
