Editorials: Rhode Island Master Lever Myths | Rhode Island Public Radio

Eliminating the master lever in Rhode Island elections is picking up steam in the General Assembly. RIPR political analyst  Scott MacKay says getting rid of straight party voting may be much ado about not much. The Rhode Island House of Representatives recently voted unanimously to end the so-called master lever, a relic of the state’s urban political machine past. A conga line of statewide elected politicians, from Gov. Lincoln Chafee down to Secretary of State Ralph Mollis, support this change. Good government groups and Rhode Island’s beleaguered Republican Party have been campaigning vigorously to curb straight party ballots. And many in the media, especially the editorial pages of the Providence Journal, have been on a crusade to scuttle it. The master level isn’t even a lever anymore. It was a dubbed the master lever when voters cast ballots in those big boxy metal voting machines that were enclosed in a thick curtain to maintain privacy. With one flick of a lever at the top of the machine, a voter could cast a straight party ticket, without having to click the levers next to the names of each individual candidate. When the state junked the machines for paper ballots that were counted with supermarket-style scanners, straight party voting survived as a single box at the top of the ballot. Thus, a voter who wanted to vote an all Republican or Democratic ticket could do so by drawing a line connecting one box, which eliminates the need to go all the way down the ballot and checking each individual box next to a candidate name.

Europe: EU and Ukraine elections dominate this week | EU Observer

The European Parliament elections and the vote for a new president in Ukraine dominate the agenda this week. Voters in The Netherlands and the UK begin the EP election process on Thursday (22 May), followed by the Czech Republic and Ireland on Friday, four more countries (Italy, Malta, Slovakia, and Lithuania) on Saturday and the rest on Sunday. The results are due at 11pm Brussels time on Sunday. The latest poll, by TNS, indicates the centre-right EPP will slightly increase its lead over the centre-left S&D and that the Liberal group will shrink. Polls also indicate that the number of populist, anti-EU MEPs of various stripes will grow, with the eurosceptic Ukip and the far-right National Front set to become the leading EU parties in the UK and France, respectively. Also on Sunday, Ukrainians will vote for their new president under the eyes of more than 1,000 OSCE monitors, the largest ever election mission by the Vienna-based multilateral body.

Europe: Ahead of EU vote, a struggle to close the ‘democratic deficit’ | Reuters

As exercises in democracy go, this week’s EU election rivals the United States, India and Brazil for sheer numbers. But when it comes to voter recognition it is a very different story. The lead candidates could not even dream of comparisons with Barack Obama or Narendra Modi and therein lies a problem for the European Union as it battles to make itself more relevant and accountable to its citizens. This week, from May 22-25, the 28 countries that make up the EU will elect a new European Parliament with up to 380 million voters, from western Portugal to northern Finland, choosing 751 deputies to represent them. In every European election since the first direct one was held in 1979, turnout has fallen, dropping to just 43 percent in 2009, despite four EU countries requiring voting by law. This year will be no different: pollsters expect turnout to drop to 40 percent or just below, and turnout among young voters – who politicians have worked hardest to connect with on issues such as jobs, education and training – will fall furthest.

Australia: Anti-coal protestors rated top threat to Australian e-voting | The Register

Sarong-clad anti-coal hippies have been marked as a chief threat to online voting at the election scheduled to take place in 2015 in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW). The protestors are identified as a threat in a report penned by CSC for the NSW government. The Reg has seen a copy of the report, which suggests developers feared protesting farmers and fire fighters could launch an attack against New South Wales’ iVote online ballot system in objection to various coal mining projects across the state. “Anti-coal lobby groups could lead to the targeting of the SGE (state government election) in 2015,” the document read. The document also outlines scenarios in which protestors could launch denial of service attacks, knocking out the ability for 250,000 remote and blind users to vote online.

Greece: Leftist Syriza Candidates Gain on Incumbents in Greek Local Elections | Wall Street Journal

With about a quarter of the ballots counted, the Syriza candidates for Athens and the province of Attica—where roughly 40% of the Greek population lives—staged a come-from-behind surge to secure a runoff against incumbents Mayor Giorgos Kaminis and regional prefect Ioannis Sgouros. In Athens, Mr. Kaminis was running roughly one percentage point ahead of challenger Gavriil Sakellaridis, while Rena Dourou, the Syriza candidate for provincial chief, was more than a percentage point ahead of Mr. Sgouros. Until a few days ago, both incumbents—who are identified with Greece’s socialist Pasok party—appeared to enjoy solid leads in their respective constituencies. This will be the first time New Democracy won’t even have a candidate in the second round in the Greek capital since 1975. “The first decisive step was taken today,” said Mr. Sakellaridis, promising an upset next week.

Guinea-Bissau: Presidential runoff vote held | Mail Online

Long lines formed outside polling stations in Guinea-Bissau on Sunday for a presidential runoff vote intended to restore constitutional order in a country known for coups and unrest. The vote pits Jose Mario Vaz, whose party won a parliamentary majority in April’s first round, against Nuno Gomes Nabiam, who is known for having close ties to military leaders. More than 80 percent of eligible voters took part in the first round, a statistic observers say indicates the country is eager to move past its instability and begin rebuilding the economy with the help of international donors.  The large crowds on Sunday at polling stations in the capital, Bissau, suggested a similarly healthy turnout for the second round.

India: US scientists ‘hack’ India electronic voting machines | Bhatkallys

Scientists at a US university say they have developed a technique to hack into Indian electronic voting machines. After connecting a home-made device to a machine, University of Michigan researchers were able to change results by sending text messages from a mobile. Indian election officials say their machines are foolproof, and that it would be very difficult even to get hold of a machine to tamper with it. India uses about 1.4m electronic voting machines in each general election. A video posted on the internet by the researchers at the University of Michigan purportedly shows them connecting a home-made electronic device to one of the voting machines used in India. Professor J Alex Halderman, who led the project, said the device allowed them to change the results on the machine by sending it messages from a mobile phone.

Iraq: Premier Leads Vote, Faces Stalemate | Wall Street Journal

A coalition led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki won the most seats in the country’s first parliamentary elections since U.S. troops left in 2011, setting the stage for a lengthy period of political wrangling amid the worst violence since the civil war. Mr. Maliki’s State of Law coalition won 92 out of 328 parliamentary seats in the elections held in late April, three more seats than it won in 2010, the Iraqi High Election Commission said Monday, putting the Iraqi leader in a strong position to secure a third term. The result left many Iraqis wondering whether another four years under Mr. Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, would deepen the sectarian rancor and extend a political stalemate that has left the government adrift. Western diplomats and analysts say that further instability would also add to the region’s political maelstrom; Syria’s civil war has spilled over into Iraq.

Switzerland: Voters rejects world’s highest minimum wage | BBC

Swiss voters have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to introduce what would have been the highest minimum wage in the world in a referendum. Under the plan, employers would have had to pay workers a minimum 22 Swiss francs (about $25; £15; 18 euros) an hour. Supporters said the move was necessary for people to live a decent life. But critics argued that it would raise production costs and increase unemployment. The minimum wage proposal was rejected by 76% of voters. Supporters had argued it would “protect equitable pay” but the Swiss Business Federation said it would harm low-paid workers in particular. The issue was the most prominent of several referendums held on Sunday.

Ukraine: Election officials at sharp end in separatist Ukraine city | Reuters

From a cramped office in residential Donetsk, election officials were frantically working on Sunday to prepare for Ukraine’s May 25 presidential poll, despite what they described as intimidation and threats from pro-Russian separatists. By Monday morning, their resolve broken, they had shut down their office. “We’re not working out of safety concerns,” said Volodymyr Klotsky, a member of election commission no. 43, adding that he and his colleagues had reluctantly taken the decision after “terrorists” had seized the offices of another voting commission nearby. Klotsky’s commission had been the last of five such election bodies opened up in the eastern Ukrainian city, an industrial hub of about 1 million, which is now the centre of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic. The separatists’ revolt, fuelled by heady Russian propaganda, was focused at several points in the east following the overthrow of the Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich and the annexation by Russia of Crimea. Nonetheless, electoral authorities had set up Klotsky and others like him to do their best to prepare for an election that Kiev’s pro-Western rulers hope will legitimize government after the street revolt that forced Yanukovich to flee to Russia.

Editorials: Deadlock in Ukraine: Something has to give | The Economist

In one week Ukrainians are to vote in a presidential election scheduled for May 25th. Developments on the ground have left people wondering if the past few days have been the calm before the storm—or whether both sides, uncertain about what to do and unable to muster enough force to prevail, have reached a stalemate. In one dramatic development the commander of rebel forces railed that he had less than 1,000 men to fight the entire Ukrainian army “while tens of thousands are watching calmly on TV, drinking beer.” On the outskirts of Sloviansk, a rebel-held city, there have days of sporadic fighting but no significant move by either side. On May 13th however, rebel forces ambushed a Ukrainian military convoy in a hit-and-run operation, killing seven soldiers. All the same it is becoming increasingly clear that both sides are bogged down. The rebels do not have enough men to defeat the Ukrainian forces deployed around town, while the army does not seem to know how to retake it without causing major civilian casualties. In an extraordinary video released by Colonel Igor Strelkov, the military commander of the rebel forces, “Strelok” says that while he now has enough weapons to fight Ukrainian forces who are preparing a major onslaught, hardly anyone was volunteering to fight. He complained that many of those who did volunteer only wanted to defend the areas around their own homes. Many want to use the resistance, he says, as a cover for banditry. Strelok suggests that many believed that they need not actually fight themselves, thinking that Russia would intervene on their behalf.

Estonia: Online Voting System Is Not Secure, Researchers Say | TechPresident

“I gave my e-vote. This is not only convenient, but a vote of confidence to one of the best IT systems in the world, a vote of confidence to the Estonian State,” tweeted Toomas Hendrik Ilves , the president of Estonia on May 15th, marking the start of early voting for the European Parliament (the voting process will end on May 25th.) While undoubtedly convenient, e-voting in Estonia might not be as safe as President Ilves think. An independent group of researchers recently tested the Estonian I-voting system used during the last municipal elections, held in October 2013, and concluded that the flaws and lapses in operational security make it vulnerable to manipulations. Therefore, it cannot be considered safe enough. Last Monday, the Guardian reported on the research, whose results are available in a technical report published on Estoniaevoting.org, a website set up by the researchers, complete with photos and videos. “These computers could have easily been compromised by criminals or foreign hackers, undermining the security of the whole system,” declared Harri Hursti to the British newspaper. Hursti is an independent researcher from Finland with experience in testing e-voting system.

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly – May 12-18 2014

estonia_260The Democratic Party’s plans to employ internet voting in the 2016 primaries have been questioned by computer security experts and political strategists. Partisan gridlock in the US Senate has left two nominees for the Election Assistance Commission in limbo for years. The Arkansas Supreme Court tossed out a judge’s ruling striking down the state’s voter ID law on Wednesday, but stopped short of ruling on the constitutionality of the measure. U.S. Rep. John Conyers has joined a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a state election law that resulted in a majority of petition signatures turned in to certify him for a 26th term were invalidated. A federal trial judge declined Thursday to side with North Carolina lawmakers who believe they are not required to provide documents to groups seeking answers about how a disputed elections-overhaul law was passed. Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen on Monday filed court papers asking U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman in Milwaukee to delay his April ruling blocking the law until the decision is reviewed by an appeals court. Independent researchers have declared that Estonia’s internet voting system should not be used for the European elections in May because its security vulnerabilities could lead to faked votes or totals and Ukraine’s government dismissed a referendum on independence held in Eastern provinces of the country as a “farce.”

National: Democratic Party considers Internet voting in 2016 election | Examiner.com

Democrats are seriously considering using the Internet for voters to cast their ballots in the 2016 presidential election saying such a process will help their party’s new president, according to news reports on Saturday. The party leaders during a recent Democratic National Committee meeting in Iowa claimed Internet voting would make it easier for their constituents to cast their ballots including military voters serving overseas. … But such a revision to the nation’s election system will be difficult once the debate takes a more prominent place within political dialogue. Several experts in law enforcement, computer science and social media are suspicious of the Internet being used to choose political leaders especially when it comes to national elections. “These Democrats are the same people who were behind the Obamacare website fiasco that is still being remedied at a cost of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. They couldn’t even get an enrollment website functioning properly so how do we trust them to get Internet voting problem-free,” said political strategist Mike Baker. “Can you imagine hundreds of thousands of votes suddenly lost forever in cyperspace? And without proper screening who is to say someone voting online is really the person they claim to be?” Baker asks.

National: Voter citizenship lawsuit looms over 2014 election | Associated Press

After Kansas began requiring residents to prove they were U.S. citizens to register to vote, the League of Women Voters started focusing its voter registration efforts at naturalization ceremonies, where people readily have such documents on them. Now that immigration officials have prohibited them from copying naturalization certificates, new citizens face discrimination and significant roadblocks in registering to vote, the group told a federal appeals court Thursday. The latest court filing by voting rights groups in a lawsuit unfolding before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals portrays a sample of the possible impacts at issue in the run-up to this year’s elections. Kansas and Arizona are seeking to force the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to change its federal voter registration form for those states to include special instructions requiring citizenship documentation. In March, a federal judge agreed and ordered the commission to immediately modify its forms, but the 10th Circuit last week put that ruling on hold, at least temporarily. Whatever the courts decide will affect primary elections in August and the general election in November.

National: Voter rights group: Registration law blocks new citizens | Associated Press

After Kansas began requiring residents to prove they were U.S. citizens to register to vote, the League of Women Voters started focusing its voter registration efforts at naturalization ceremonies, where people readily have such documents on them. Now that immigration officials have prohibited them from copying naturalization certificates, new citizens face discrimination and significant roadblocks in registering to vote, the group told a federal appeals court Thursday. The latest court filing by voting rights groups in a lawsuit unfolding before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals portrays a sample of the possible impacts at issue in the run-up to this year’s elections. Kansas and Arizona are seeking to force the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to change its federal voter registration form for those states to include special instructions requiring citizenship documentation. In March, a federal judge agreed and ordered the commission to immediately modify its forms, but the 10th Circuit last week put that ruling on hold, at least temporarily. Whatever the courts decide will affect primary elections in August and the general election in November.

Editorials: Does anyone really impersonate another voter? | The Daily Page

It was not so long ago that Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson had so much appeal for Democrats that he carried both Dane and Milwaukee counties. Thompson pushed to get 65% or 70% of the vote, but nowadays, he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the parties say, “How do I get to 50% plus one?'” In Thompson’s day, no Republicans advocated for photo ID. But in this era of extreme polarization, where it’s all about getting a higher percentage of your supporters to the polls, GOP legislators overwhelmingly agree photo ID is needed. They deny it’s about creating a barrier for mostly Democratic low-income and minority voters and depressing their turnout. No, no, it’s all about combating voter fraud. That claim was put to the test in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, who heard extensive testimony from both sides before issuing an April 29 decision declaring the state photo ID law unconstitutional. Defending the law was a skilled lawyer, Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who had every chance to present evidence proving voter fraud occurs. But if you read his huge final brief, Van Hollen had very weak arguments on that point. “The defendants could not point to a single instance of known voter impersonation occurring in Wisconsin at any time in the recent past,” Adelman’s decision states. Testifying for the plaintiffs was Rutgers University Prof. Lorraine Minnite, who specializes in researching voter fraud. She studied elections in Wisconsin in 2004, 2008, 2010 and 2012, analyzing newspaper databases, news releases by the attorney general, criminal complaints, decisions by state courts, and documents issued by the Government Accountability Board, and could identify only one case of voter impersonation fraud. That case did not involve in-person voter impersonation, which the photo ID requirement is meant to prevent.

Voting Blogs: Has social media changed elections? | electionlineWeekly

Twenty years ago, my first job was as a News Aide at The Washington Post. On election night 1994 I was given a telephone and sent on my way to the D.C. Board of Elections (DCBOE). Upon arrival at the DCBOE, I plugged my phone into a jack in the wall in a room set up for reporters and once polls closed about every 30 minutes to an hour someone from the BOE would bring those of us in the room a stack of green bar paper with precinct results listed and I would call in results to then-Metro Editor Joann Armao. Sometime around midnight, with votes still waiting to be counted, but the outcome clear and a home delivery deadline looming, Armao called the race for Democrat Marion Barry who was making a comeback following time spent in prison. It was closer to 2 a.m. by the time I could unplug my phone and take the last stack of green bar paper home with me for analysis in the morning. A lot sure has changed in the past 20 years, but has the instant gratification of social media and the web made the public’s and media’s expectations for election night unrealistic? Do elections officials on social media see it as a burden or a cost-effective way to stay up-to-the-minute with what’s going on at the polls and provide useful information to voters?

Voting Blogs: Filling in the Record Book: Election Data Analysis Can’t Start Without Election Data Collection | Election Academy

Yesterday, Nate Silver’s new and expanded FiveThirtyEight had a fascinating story on Dick Pfander,”The Man Who Preserved Decades of NBA History“, whose hobby of collecting and tabulating years of NBA boxscores (the image above is handwritten career stats for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) formed the basis for the league’s early statistical records. Now, that archive is powering a new generation of highly-sophisticated analysis. I highly recommend the article as an example of how something that seems obvious and straightforward to collect and analyze – sports statistics – is anything but. To an election geek, the article is timely because of a discussion that took place yesterday at the Senate Rules Committee hearing on “Collection, Analysis and Use of Data: A Measured Approach to Improving Election Administration.”

California: The Jungle Primary | Time Magazine

All bets are off in California’s congressional races as multiple candidates from the same party face off. Well, part of it is that Dan Schnur is an interesting guy, a longtime consultant to moderate Republicans like Arnold Schwarzenegger and John McCain. But he isn’t a Republican anymore. He’s running as an Independent. “I’m in favor of marriage equality and lower taxes,” he begins. “I’m tough on crime and pro-choice. I’m for immigration reform and for using test scores as a valuable measure of students’ progress. Yes, the reason that I’m running as an Independent is that neither party will have me.” But that’s not exactly accurate. He’s running as an Independent because there were two political reforms enacted during Schwarzenegger’s time as governor of California. They were below the radar but startling, the sort of reforms that are near impossible because incumbent politicians usually block them–but they were passed by public referendum and initiative in 2010, and Schnur was one of those at the heart of the campaign to get them enacted.

Hawaii: State likely to allow same-day voter registration | Washington Post

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) is likely to sign legislation allowing eligible citizens to register and vote on Election Day after the legislature passed the measure by a wide margin. Anyone eligible to cast a ballot would be able to register on Election Day at early voting sites beginning in 2016, or at regular polling places starting in 2018. Scott Nago, the state’s chief elections officer, supported the bill in written testimony before the legislature. Abercrombie has not said whether he will sign the bill, but Democrats expect him to do so. Elections officials and Democrats who backed the bill said they hoped it would boost turnout in a state with the lowest participation rates in the country.

Editorials: Schultz’s crusade heavy on cost, light on fraud | Des Moines Register

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz concludes that “illegal voters are participating in Iowa’s elections.” Actually, the report shows there is very little “fraud” by would-be or actual voters. And the report reveals that Schultz got very little of value in return for the criminal investigation that has cost the state $250,000. From the time he entered office in 2011, Schultz set out to plant the idea that Iowa’s elections are vulnerable to fraud perpetrated by illegal immigrants, convicted felons and other miscreants. After more than two years of beating the bushes for evidence of this fraud, Schultz reported last week that of 238 cases investigated, 27 criminal charges have been filed by Iowa county attorneys. Of those 27 criminal prosecutions, guilt was established in six cases, four cases were dismissed, one defendant was found not guilty, one prosecution was deferred and 15 cases are pending. In a state with nearly 2 million active registered voters, this handful of cases hardly constitutes evidence of a major problem of voter fraud.

Missouri: Lawmakers endorse early voting measure | Associated Press

An early voting measure Missouri lawmakers endorsed Wednesday could wind up competing on the ballot with a more expansive version proposed through a petition drive. The constitutional amendment passed by the Legislature would allow ballots to be cast on six business days ending the Wednesday before an election. In-person ballots would be cast during the regular business hours of local election officials, who would be barred from activities or incurring expenses for early voting unless funding is included in the state budget. The measure states its provisions could not be repealed or invalidated by another constitutional amendment unless that measure specifically references them. The Legislature’s approval means it will appear on the November ballot unless Gov. Jay Nixon sets a different election date.

Montana: Missoula commissioners hear critics of appointed elections administrator | The Missoulian

If you oversee voting – the most basic right in a democracy – you should be directly accountable to voters. So said many members of the public who spoke Wednesday at a Missoula Board of County Commissioners hearing on the creation of an appointed elections administrator. Currently, election administration is among the responsibilities of the clerk and recorder – who is elected by voters – and the proposal to create a position beholden to county officials instead wasn’t popular among audience members. “It’s really vital that the person who safeguards our voting process is directly responsible to the voters,” said Daniel Viehland of the Montana Public Interest Research Group, or MontPIRG. Currently, the clerk and recorder is elected and oversees elections, treasurer duties, motor vehicles and document recording. The proposal under consideration would move election duties into the job of a full-time administrator who would be appointed rather than elected and would report to the chief administrative officer; the clerk and recorder would remain elected and continue to oversee the other functions.

New Jersey: Bill could allow overseas soldiers and diplomats to vote online | Burlington County Times

New Jersey lawmakers have advanced legislation that could pave the way for soldiers and diplomats serving overseas to vote completely online. New Jerseyans serving in the military or foreign service are permitted to request and return mail-in ballots by fax or email, but the process isn’t completely private and can still be difficult because service members also must complete and mail ballots to their county boards of election. Legislation penned by Assemblyman Paul Moriarty, D-4th of Washington, seeks to move the process exclusively online to a secure and private system. Moriarty’s bill would require the New Jersey secretary of state to pursue such a system and implement it as a pilot program, if it is feasible. “For those who defend our freedoms as well as others who serve overseas, we should make it easier for them to exercise their own freedoms and have their votes counted,” he said Thursday during a hearing on the measure before the Assembly Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. “The technology is there, and it’s being used around the world. I think the time is right for a pilot program.”

Ohio: Democrats push for election changes before November vote | The Columbus Dispatch

More early voting, online registration and broader counting of provisional ballots are among the changes legislative Democrats say should be made before the November election. Democrats put together a list of issues, including several they have been raising over the past few years. “Ohio just is not doing a good enough job of clearing the path to the ballot and counting these ballots once they cast them,” said House Minority Leader Tracy Maxwell Heard, D-Columbus. Secretary of State Jon Husted has argued that with early voting, mail voting and Election Day, there is plenty of opportunity to cast a ballot in Ohio. Democrats want Husted to rescind his directive setting days and hours for early voting this year. Based on a bipartisan recommendation from county election officials, it includes the two Saturdays before Election Day. Democrats say it also should include evening hours and the Sunday and Monday before the election.

Myanmar: Opposition: No Progress in Talks With Election Commission | VoA News

Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, says it has made no progress in talks with the national Election Commission about controversial new campaign rules. NLD spokesman Nyan Win Thursday says that the rules are illegal. “No legislation has given authorization to anybody for this kind of instruction,” he said. “The second point is if they enforce this instruction it will be against the jurisdiction of the Union Parliament.”

Egypt: Expat voting in presidential poll kicks off | Ahram Online

Egyptians living abroad began Thursday to cast their ballots in a presidential poll that is expected to bring former army chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to power. Egyptian embassies and consulates across 124 countries are expected to open Thursday for voting over 12 hours, from 9am local time, Egypt’s foreign ministry said. Polling locations in Paris, Austria’s Vienna, Sudan’s Khartoum and New Zealand’s Wellington opened their doors Thursday morning for expatriate Egyptians to vote in the four-day poll that will conclude 18 May, state news agency MENA has said. The presidential vote is scheduled to open at home 26-27 May and is highly tipped to be won by retired army chief and frontrunner chief El-Sisi. Only one other rival running for the country’s top post is leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, who came third in the 2012 election. The vote is the second milestone in a transitional roadmap set out by interim authorities following Mohamed Morsi’s ouster last July. The first was a January referendum on an amended constitution in which around only 107,000 expatriates cast their ballots out of over 600,000 eligible Egyptian voters in 161 countries.

India: Ruling Party Concedes Defeat | VoA News

Opposition candidate Narendra Modi will be the next prime minister of India, with early election results on Friday showing the pro-business Hindu nationalist and his party headed for the biggest victory the country has seen in 30 years. India’s ruling Congress party conceded defeat Friday. Congress party spokesmen told reporters the party had accepted that the country decided to vote against them. The alliance led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was winning the vote count in 325 parliamentary seats, far more than the majority of 272 required to rule. Even on its own, the BJP was ahead in 273 seats. The United Progressive Alliance led by the Gandhi family’s Congress party, which has ruled India for the last decade, was leading in just 67 seats – its worst-ever showing.

Malawi: Malawi goes to the polls in a climate of distrust and instability | The Guardian

Preparations for the general election in Malawi on 20 May have been more organised and transparent than in previous years, due in part to the current leadership of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC). The commission has taken on the state broadcaster, MBC, encouraging it to open up to opposition candidates and their advertisements. It has co-sponsored public debates involving candidates and regularly sent press briefings on electoral procedures. In the prevailing climate of mistrust, it is vital for the MEC to reassure candidates and voters that the presidential, national assembly and local council elections will be free and fair, and that the new government will be legitimately elected. The distrust dates back to the unexpected death of President Bingu wa Mutharika in April 2012. It began with vice-president Joyce Banda’s ascension to power, when the president’s brother, Peter Mutharika, and his Democratic Progressive party colleagues tried to halt the legal succession. Peter Mutharika is now a presidential candidate, and many voters believe his campaign is funded by wealth his brother accumulated during his period in office. His trial, along with those of the other 11 “coup-plotters”, is on hold.