Authorities in the Netherlands are to abandon electronic vote counting in favor of old fashioned methods following reports of foreign interference in other countries’ elections. The country’s general election on March 15 will instead be all-paper and all-manual, Politico reported. Electronic voting was banned in the country in 2007, but software has since been used to count votes electronically. “I don’t want a shadow of doubt over the result in a political climate like the one we know today,” Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk said. “I can imagine some party or professor somewhere will say there is a remaining risk that it was hacked… and that would keep haunting the election outcome.”
Both last year’s U.S. presidential election and the ongoing French presidential election have been marred by claims of interference from Russia or Russia-backed hackers.
Hacks targeting the U.S. Democratic party and the Hillary Clinton campaign led some to claim that Russia was seeking to influence the election outcome in favor of Donald Trump. Russia has always denied any such meddling.
Full Article: Netherlands Abandons Electronic Vote Counting Amid Hacking Fears.
