The Afghan election commission on Sunday expelled nine lawmakers who faced election fraud allegations.
A special court set up by President Hamid Karzai had been prosecuting alleged electoral fraud by 62 parliament members. The nine were among them. The election commission announced the expulsions Sunday, four days after the special court was dissolved.
Elections Canada announced their support for online voting on Wednesday, leaving others to point out the security vulnerabilities such a plan would introduce. The Jones County Mississippi clerk convinced his county’s Board of Supervisors to allow the removal of voter verified paper audit trail printers with the astonishing claim that there is no way to tamper with Diebold TSx touchscreen voting machines. An audit of South Carolina’s 2010 elections revealed widespread discrepancies and irregularities with the state’s ES&S iVotronic touchscreen voting machines. Also this week, the Department of Justice determined that South Carolina’s new voter ID requirement could not be enforced this year at least. The Wake County North Carolina District Attorney noted that none of the nine people charged last week for voting twice in the 2008 elections would have been deterred by a photo ID requirement, though of course all were caught under current law. Though a concealed weapon license can serve as identification for voting under emergency legislation signed by Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Veteran’s ID apparently can not. At least 38 people have been killed in election-related violence in the run-up to the Guatemalan elections and thousands protested in Kabul after an Independent Election Commission recommended the removal of 62 legislators due to irregularities in last year’s elections.