The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for April 13-19 2015
Although official Pentagon policy opposes the transmission of voted ballots over the internet, including email and fax voting, Defense Department officials have testified in State legislatures in support of bills that would allow military and other overseas voters to cast election ballots via email or fax without having to certify their identities. After a report from the state’s Internet Technology Security Team revealed serious security vulnerabilities in the AVS WINVote voting machine, the Virginia Board of Elections moved to decertify the equipment effective immediately leaving many localities scrambling to make alternate plans for June primaries. Two hours before the city council planned to start removal hearings for Hartford’s three registrars of voters, a Superior Court judge ruled that the council doesn’t have the power to oust the elected officials. In defiance of the top estate election official, both chambers of the Florida legislature passed a measure to implement online voter registration. Voting rights advocates and Ohio’s top election official have settled a lawsuit over controversial cuts to the pivotal presidential state’s early voting period. Researchers have demonstrated that as many as 66,000 votes in the New South Wales state election 2015 cast through the iVote internet voting system could have been tampered with and Sudan President Omar al-Bashir, was re-elected amid widespread apathy and a call for a boycott by opposition groups.