For the second time in two years, voters in Guinea-Bissau are heading to the polls to choose a president for their small, coup-prone nation. In 2009, the country held an emergency election following the assassination of longtime President Joao Bernardo Vieira. Newly elected leader Malam Bacai spent the better part of his term shuttling between hospitals to treat a mysterious illness. He died in January, prompting the current election.
With more confusion at the latest round of caucuses in Missouri, 2012 continues to be the year of the caucus meltdown. Andrew Cohen surveyed the raft of new voter ID laws and Doug Chapin considered the dilemma faced by St. charles County MO is upgrading their voting systems. Voter ID laws were blocked in Texas, by the Department of Justice and in Wisconsin by two courts even as Pennsylvania Governor Corbett signed a law creating similar restrictions on voting. Rick Hasen suggests that the Texas decision could be headed to the Supreme Court. And while initial reported results appeared to give the right wing ARENA party a narrow victory over the currently ruling FMLN, a lack of transparency in vote counting procedures has cast doubts on the integrity of the outcome.
Iran’s run-off parliamentary election will be held on May 4, an official at the election headquarters of the Interior Ministry announced on Saturday. The second round of the ninth Majlis election will be held in Tehran and 32 other constituencies on May 4, Hassan Ali Nouri told the Persian service of ISNA. Two hundred and twenty five parliamentary seats were decided in the first round of the parliamentary election on March 2, and a run-off election will be held to decide the remaining 65 seats.