Australia: Labor challenges election of Nationals MP David Gillespie in high court | The Guardian

Labor has launched a high court challenge to the right of a National party MP to sit in the parliament, which could remove the Coalition government’s one-seat majority. Labor’s national executive confirmed the decision on Friday morning to challenge the assistant health minister and National MP for Lyne, David Gillespie, over a potential commercial interest with the commonwealth. If the case were successful, a byelection would be triggered in the safe National party seat on the New South Wales mid-north coast. If the Coalition candidate lost, the Turnbull government would lose its one-seat majority. Gillespie won the seat after the former independent Rob Oakeshott retired at the 2013 election. Oakeshott ran at the 2016 election in the nearby safe National seat of Cowper but failed to unseat MP Luke Hartsuyker after a three-week campaign.

Canada: Online voting still too risky, cybersecurity expert says | The Record

Online voting is not a secure way for electors to choose a new government, says the chief technology officer of a Cambridge-based cybersecurity firm eSentire. “As a technologist and someone who is very concerned about the integrity of our elections, I would not be a fan or supportive of any electronic voting system,” said Mark McArdle. Online voting is expected to be used by 150 to 200 Ontario municipalities in the next round of municipal elections in October 2018. One of those cities will be Cambridge, which allowed online voting and telephone voting for a two-week advance voting period in 2014. In the next election in 2018, Cambridge will expand early voting to three weeks, and allow internet and telephone voting on election day.

Germany: De Maiziere expects Russian leaking to start in ‘weeks’ | EUObserver

Germany expects Russia to start publishing compromising material on German MPs in the summer in order to destabilise elections in September. Its interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, and spy chief, Hans-Georg Maassen, issued the warning in Berlin on Tuesday (4 July) after unveiling a yearly intelligence report. De Maiziere said the material “could be published in the coming weeks,” the Reuters news agency reported. Maassen said Russia’s intention was “to damage trust in and the functioning of our democracy so our government should have domestic political difficulties and not be as free to act in its foreign policy as it is today.”

Papua New Guinea: From ‘anticipation, excitement’ to dictatorship fears in Papua New Guinea election | Asia Pacific Report

Feelings of “anticipation, excitement” first gripped Papua New Guinea as polling opened last month. … But the anticipation and excitement was short-lived and quickly descended into condemnation of the state of the electoral common roll as thousands reported they had not been listed, despite registration, and also disruptions as reported a week later on PMW’s Southern Cross. In Lae, students set fire to ballot papers in protest, while others at Unitech missed out on voting as only 1100 ballot papers arrived for a voting population of 5000. Similar stories were echoed across Papua New Guinea as 4000 to 5000 students in Goroka were denied the chance to cast a ballot.

Russia: Russian investigators raid election offices of Putin critic Navalny | Reuters

Russian investigators raided the Moscow election headquarters of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Thursday and police entered a warehouse, where activists said they confiscated pre-election pamphlets. Navalny, who has organized two big anti-government street protests in recent months, is currently serving out a 25-day jail term for repeatedly violating the law on organizing public meetings. He is due out on Friday. Navalny says he wants to run for the presidency in March next year, but the Central Election Commission has said he is ineligible due to an embezzlement conviction which Navalny says was politically-motivated.

Rwanda: Climate of Fear Engulfs Rwanda’s Upcoming Vote, Amnesty Says | Associated Press

Rwanda’s presidential election next month will be held under “a climate of fear” following two decades of often deadly attacks on political opponents, journalists and rights activists, Amnesty International charged Friday, calling for serious political reforms in the East African country. “Since the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front took power 23 years ago, Rwandans have faced huge, and often deadly, obstacles to participating in public life and voicing criticism of government policy,” said Muthoni Wanyeki, an Amnesty official in East Africa. “The climate in which the upcoming elections take place is the culmination of years of repression.” Many killings and disappearances, including some recent ones, have been blamed on the government of President Paul Kagame, who has been his country’s de facto leader or elected president since the end of the 1994 genocide.