This is pretty indefensible and indicates the results of this 'election' are likely fixed.
Every election in every country took place without Internet or (meaningful amounts of) cell phone service not that long ago.
call me crazy but i think mass-scale communication is a better way to manipulate votes, it allows people far away from each other to coordinate their numbers
but if you cut off their coordination mechanism they can't exchange information, and perhaps they might fear pushing out fake numbers in case the numbers of them plus a few others look strange. the best defense would be honesty
If you're making your choice based on breaking news on election day, you're the one being manipulated.