 Diệm 's government formulated procedural regulations ostensibly designed to ensure results and ballots were correctly accounted for and to prevent election fraud . In reality however , the votes were counted without independent supervision , which resulted in Diệm being credited with 98 @.@ 2 % of the vote . The prime minister tallied 605 @,@ 025 votes in Saigon , although only 450 @,@ 000 voters were registered in the capital . Diệm 's tally exceeded the registration numbers in other districts . French newspapers claimed that only half of the registered voters in Saigon had actually voted , and that the rest had boycotted the election , implying that more than 60 % of the votes in the capital were not authentic . Defenders of Diệm claim this was due to recently arrived , mostly Catholic , refugees from North Vietnam who voted without being enrolled , rather than large @-@ scale ballot stuffing . 
