Australia: Report Urges Electronic Election Scanning – But Not Online Voting | ZDNet

The third interim report by the Australian Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into the conduct of the 2016 federal election has recommended that the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) be modernised and have its 25-year-old technology systems updated, as well as conduct a pilot of electronic counting and scanning of House of Representatives ballot papers. With changes to the way preferences were allocated in the Senate before the federal election in 2016, the AEC introduced a semi-automated process to scan Senate ballot papers. Due to Australia’s complex Senate quota system, the counting was already handled electronically. Handing down its report [PDF] on Wednesday, the joint committee endorsed plans by the AEC to extend the scanning and counting to Australia’s lower house. … But the report by a joint parliamentary committee stops short of any suggestion of introducing major-scale electronic voting to Australian elections. At this stage only the scanning and counting of votes should be done electronically – and the report says this needs expensive new technology.

Germany: Bundestag cancels German government funding of non-democratic parties | Deutsche Welle

A majority of 502 of 579 delegates in the German Bundestag voted Thursday in favor of amending the country’s constitution to deprive anti-democratic political parties of federal money. One of the first groups likely to be affected by the new rules is the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), which received 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) last year. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas was pleased with the constitutional amendment. “The state is under no obligation to finance enemies of democracy,” Maas said in a statement just ahead of the vote. “Devoting tax money to the NPD is a direct state investment in radical right-wing incitement.” Under the previous rules, any party garnering 1 percent in a local election or 0.5 percent in a national or EU election automatically qualified for state funding up to the amount of money raised by the party itself. The NPD polled 1.5 percent and 1 percent respectively in the 2013 German national election and the 2014 EU election.

Nepal: The baffled voters | Umesh Raj Regmi/The Kathmandu Post

The recently concluded first phase of local elections have pointed to a marked need for voter education. The Election Commission of Nepal (ECN) has recognised that it is urgent to educate voters to ensure free, fair and credible elections. Making potential voters and stakeholders aware of their voting rights, and getting them to cast their votes properly and confidently is a continuous process. Much effort has been made to convince people to go cast their votes, but little has been done to make sure that they mark the ballot paper correctly. Consequently, an unexpectedly large number of invalid votes were found even in metropolitan areas.

Papua New Guinea: Violence Surfaces in Papua New Guinea Elections, But Not Only | IDN

As Papua New Guinea – one of the world’s most ethnically and linguistically diverse nations – prepares for national elections from June 24 to July 8, authorities are calling for peace and calm. Historically, tensions during polling, vote counting and the announcement of winners has erupted into widespread violence, but the phenomenon is not limited to election periods in this south-western Pacific island country. “Increased access to high-powered guns such as military style M16s and homemade shotguns, and the breakdown of traditional rules of warfare, has amplified the effects of violence, resulting in dozens – if not hundreds – of violent deaths and thousands of displacements each year, especially in the Highlands. We are seeing wounds that one would see in war zones,” says International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) chief official in PNG, Mark Kessler.