{"id":11009,"date":"2019-11-12T12:38:24","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T03:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/nov\/12\/new-zealand-twitchy-amid-claims-of-russian-meddling-in-bird-of-the-year-contest"},"modified":"2019-11-12T12:38:24","modified_gmt":"2019-11-12T03:38:24","slug":"new-zealand-twitchy-amid-claims-of-russian-meddling-in-bird-of-the-year-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=11009","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand twitchy amid claims of Russian meddling in bird of the year contest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of votes were cast in Russia, but organisers say the email addresses appeared to be legitimate<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an election that has spawned meme wars, full-size billboards, trash talking between rival campaigns, and now, accusations of Russian electoral fraud. Organisers of New Zealand\u2019s bird of the year contest \u2013 a wholesome poll that raises awareness about the plight of native species \u2013 have denied claims the 2019 result was marred by fowl play after revealing a high number of votes cast from other countries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople are coming up with all kinds of theories about Russian involvement in New Zealand elections,\u201d said Megan Hubscher, a spokesperson for Forest and Bird, the independent conservation group that runs the annual vote. \u201cBut we can assure everyone that everything seems above board this time around.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/nov\/12\/new-zealand-twitchy-amid-claims-of-russian-meddling-in-bird-of-the-year-contest\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of votes were cast in Russia, but organisers say the email addresses appeared to be legitimateIt\u2019s an election that has spawned meme wars, full-size billboards, trash talking between rival campaigns, and now, accusations of Russian electoral f&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":569,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[265,41,337,65,56,94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-asia-pacific","category-birds","category-environment","category-new-zealand","category-wildlife"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/569"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11010,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11009\/revisions\/11010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}