Maryland: Julius Henson “Robo Call” Verdict Affirmed by Marylan Appeals court | Afro

Maryland’s second-highest court has affirmed the verdict in the election fraud trial of a campaign consultant involving Election Day automated calls that prosecutors said were aimed at keeping Black voters from the polls. Julius Henson worked for former Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich’s campaign during his 2010 rematch with Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley. Last year, a Baltimore jury convicted him of conspiring to send robocalls without an authority line that explained who sent the message. He appealed, arguing that the verdict was inconsistent and the application of the election law was constitutionally vague. The Court of Special Appeals disagreed with both questions in a ruling filed last week. It also found that the jury instruction was not erroneous and a sentence barring participation in politics during probation was legal. “This case presents us with a sad tale,” wrote Judge Albert J. Matricciani, for a three-judge panel that ruled on the case.

Zimbabwe: Documents reveal plan to rig elections | New Zimbabwe

Damning top-secret intelligence documents that expose President Robert Mugabe’s plans to rig the forthcoming election and crush his political rivals have been handed to The Mail on Sunday. The dossier reveals in astonishing detail how Mugabe is plotting to steal millions of votes with massive and systematic ballot-rigging combined with widespread intimidation by party thugs. His tactics, along with details of massive funding from named British, Chinese and African backers, are disclosed in highly confidential papers written for his closest aides. They were obtained from intelligence sources who risked their lives to expose the covert campaign to keep 89-year-old Mugabe and his military cabal in power.

Malaysia: Opposition files suit against Election Commission over election fraud | Business Standard

Malaysia’s opposition alliance today filed a suit against the country’s Election Commission, claiming fraud over the use of the indelible ink during the May 5 general elections in which the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional party secured victory. In their suit, the eight plaintiffs were the three opposition parties PAS, PKR and DAP and election candidates Dzulkefly Ahmad, M Manogaran, Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, Arifin Abd Rahman and R Abbo. They named seven defendants, with the first two being Election Commission (EC) chairman Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof and his deputy Wan Ahmad Wan Omar. The remaining defendants are members of the EC.

Florida: Congressman Joe Garcia’s chief of staff implicated in phantom absentee-ballot requests scheme | Miami Herald

Congressman Joe Garcia’s chief of staff abruptly resigned Friday after being implicated in a sophisticated scheme to manipulate last year’s primary elections by submitting hundreds of fraudulent absentee-ballot requests. Friday afternoon, Garcia said he had asked Jeffrey Garcia, no relation, for his resignation after the chief of staff — also the congressman’s top political strategist — took responsibility for the plot. Hours earlier, law enforcement investigators raided the homes of another of Joe Garcia’s employees and a former campaign aide in connection with an ongoing criminal investigation into the matter. “I’m shocked and disappointed about this,” Garcia, who said he was unaware of the scheme, told The Miami Herald. “This is something that hit me from left field. Until today, I had no earthly idea this was going on.”

Estonia: EU Parliament member involved in Reform Party election scandal | Baltic Course

Estonian Reform Party court of honour convened for a meeting Tuesday evening to discuss the conclusions of the party’s working group that investigated the internal elections fraud in the party, which, among others, involves Estonian European Parliament member Kristiina Ojuland, LETA/Postimees Online reports. The report of the working group should next be discussed by the party board on Wednesday. The head of the working group, Reform Party MP Väino Linde told Postimees that the materials and testimonies they had collected confirmed the suspicions of the working group that Reform Party’s Lääne-Virumaa county organisation development manager Taimi Samblik, the county organisations chairwoman, European Parliament member Kristiina Ojuland and Lääne-Viru County Governor Einar Vallbaum were connected to the voting fraud that was committed at the elections of the party board in 2011 and 2013.

Equatorial Guinea: Opposition cries foul after leader’s party sweeps vote | Reuters

Equatorial Guinea’s main opposition movement cried foul on Tuesday after the president’s party announced it had won all but two seats in last month’s parliamentary election in the tiny oil-rich West African state. President Teodoro Nguema Obiang’s ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE) won 99 of the 100 seats in the lower house of assembly and 54 of 55 senate seats in the May 26 vote, the government said on its website on Saturday. The Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS) party will be the only opposition group represented in parliament, with one seat in the lower house and one in the senate. “These results have nothing to do with the votes people actually cast,” Placido Mico, secretary-general of the CPDS, told Reuters. “We completely reject these results … This is a real fraud, in total violation of the law.”

France: French electronic voting allegedly easy to rig – Ballot stuffing claims | TechEye

France’s first electronic election has turned into a farce with reports coming in of the sort of election rigging that you would expect from third world countries like Afghanistan, Zimbabwe or the USA. An “online-primary” claimed as “fraud-proof” and as “ultra secure” as the Maginot Line, has turned out to be vulnerable to a Blizkrieg of multiple and fake voting. The election was supposed to anoint a rising star of the moderate right, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, 39, as the party’s candidate in the election for mayor of Paris next spring. Some of her problems was that she abstained in the final parliamentary vote on same-sex marriage in late April and hard-right figures within the party urged militant opponents of gay marriage to swamp the open primary with votes for a young Paris city councillor, Pierre-Yves Bournazel. So it was going to be a tight election, and then journalists from Metronews proved that it was easy to breach the allegedly strict security of the election. They voted several times using different names to prove their point.

Ghana: Serial numbers irrelevant to election results – Afari-Gyan | GhanaWeb

Chairman of Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC) has told the Supreme Court in the ongoing election petition that the serial numbers embossed on electoral record papers (pink sheets) are irrelevant, and therefore, bear no significance to declared election results. The petitioners had claimed in their pleadings that duplication of serial numbers on pink sheets was one of the vehicles used by the president and the governing National Democratic Congress in collusion with the Electoral Commission to rig the 2012 elections. However, Dr. Afari-Gyan, on Monday, June 3, 2013 told the court during his evidence-in-chief that the serial numbers on the pink sheets have “absolutely no relevance to the compilation and declaration of results”. He maintained that “the pink sheets are distributed randomly”.

Malaysia: Election Commission comes under fire | Channel NewsAsia

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Petaling Jaya outside Kuala Lumpur over the weekend to take part in nationwide rallies to contest the results of the May 5 elections. The series of rallies are known as 505 Suara Rakyat or People’s Voice 505 – named after the May 5 elections that saw the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition returned to power despite having lost the popular vote. Three weeks after the results were announced, Malaysians are still protesting against the outcome of the 13th general elections which they claimed were tainted by electoral fraud.

Russia: Kremlin ‘outraged’ by electoral fraud… in Eurovision song contest | CSMonitor.com

Russian authorities have finally found a case of alleged voting fraud that they can get really incensed about. No, it’s not the 2011 Duma elections, which experts from across Russia’s political spectrum now agree were probably falsified on a huge scale. That has never been the subject of official outrage, or even investigation. This is something far more important: the continental song competition, Eurovision. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists yesterday that he was “outraged” to learn that the voting system in neighboring Azerbaijan had eliminated the votes cast for Russian Eurovision contestant Dina Garipova in that country. Voters registering their preferences by cellphone had given a second-place finish to Ms. Garipova – which should have given her 10 points in the overall contest – but they had somehow disappeared in the reporting process.

Florida: Notes kept by accused Miami-Dade ballot broker reveal details | Miami Herald

Deisy Pentón de Cabrera kept meticulous notes on hundreds of voters, several political campaigns between 2008 and 2012 and what appear to be payments of $50 to $1,300 that are not on any candidate’s financial reports. Detectives confiscated three notebooks in which she wrote this and other information last summer. Finally, nine months after her arrest for alleged ballot fraud in Hialeah, the notebooks have been presented as evidence in the case. Cabrera, 57, wrote in a shaky hand and used abbreviations that are difficult to decipher. But her notes shed some light on the busy workload of this accused ballot broker, or boletera:

Kansas: Local officials oppose election fraud bill | Garden City Telegram

Local lawmakers and prosecutors share concern over pending legislation that if passed, would give Secretary of State Kris Kobach the power to prosecute election fraud cases. Different versions of the bill containing Kobach’s proposal already have been approved by the House and Senate, and there is speculation the final bill will be passed by the Legislature by the end of this week. State Rep. Russ Jennings, R-Lakin, said he is completely against it. “I voted against it in committee. I voted against it every step along the way,” Jennings said.

Malaysia: Election Fraud in Malaysia | Huffington Post

Malaysians cast their ballots in the most important election in the nation’s history on Sunday. On Election Day, as had been predicted by opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, reports of electoral fraud were widespread. Although the Prime Minister Najib Razak had just a few days earlier given his categorical assurance that the election would be clean, a mountain of evidence started piling up to negate his assertion. It was discovered that despite years of pressuring the Malaysian Election Commission (EC) to ensure a free, fair and unbiased election the EC continued to demonstrate its incompetence and lack of professionalism. Furthermore, evidence has emerged that websites in Malaysia are being selectively and deliberately blocked to prevent the free flow of independent information.

Malaysia: Fraud alleged as Malaysian coalition wins re-election | The Globe and Mail

Malaysia’s long-ruling National Front, headed by Prime Minister Najib Razak, appeared to fend off a fierce challenge and win re-election on Sunday. But the country’s opposition leader said the vote was tainted by widespread irregularities and did not reflect the popular will. He refused to concede. Anwar Ibrahim, whose support base is largely Internet-savvy younger voters, had promised the election would mark a “Malaysian Spring” in the country. Now Malaysians wait to see whether the veteran opposition leader will try and challenge the result in the courts or streets.

Iran: Was Ahmadinejad arrested by the Revolutionary Guard? | Daily Mail

Reports have claimed that the Iranian President was arrested this week and warned against releasing information which could prove damaging to the country’s Islamic regime. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was allegedly held for seven hours by the Revolutionary Guard on Monday and told to back down with claims that the regime defrauded voters at the last general election and allegations of fraud against political rivals. According to WND.com, the President was returning from a book fair in Tehran when his security advisor was informed that he was requested to appear at the Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei’s office on an urgent matter. But three other cars are said to have joined the President’s convoy and contact was lost between him and his security vehicles.

Iran: Ahmadinejad To Expose 2009 Voter Fraud If Protégé Barred From June 14 Election | Eurasia Review

As Iran gears up for its presidential election in June, the question of fraud in the 2009 election continues to haunt the country’s leadership. Baztab, a widely read news site close to former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezaei, stirred up controversy on Saturday after it claimed that Ahmadinejad, Iran’s beleaguered head of government, was in possession of a tape that would prove that authorities had inflated his number of votes in the 2009 race by 8 million and thus brought his total tally to 24 million instead of his original 16 million. … Baztab claimed that Ahmadinejad had threatened to release the alleged tape should the Guardian Council, a body charged with overseeing elections, decide to bar his top aide and protégé Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei from running in the upcoming presidential election on 14 June.

Venezuela: Opposition to boycott vote audit | USAToday

Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski said Thursday his movement will boycott an audit of the election results and push the government to hold a new presidential vote. Capriles said the opposition would not participate in the audit because the National Electoral Council did not meet its demand for an examination of registers containing voters’ signatures and fingerprints. He said the opposition would go to the Supreme Court to challenge the results of the April 14 election, which was narrowly won by Nicolás Maduro, the handpicked successor of President Hugo Chávez, an anti-American leader who died from cancer.

Massachusetts: Former Everett state representative sent to prison for election fraud | The Boston Globe

A former state representative from Everett was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in ­Boston to four months in prison for cheating the absentee ballot process in two elections in which he won. Stephen Smith, 57, a married father of four, will also serve a year of probation and must pay a $20,000 fine. He was ordered to report to a prison, to be designated by the US Bureau of Prisons, by May 21. US Magistrate Judge Leo T. Sorokin said in handing out the sentence that Smith had ­betrayed the trust of his constituents in Everett. “Fair and honest elections are really the foundation of our society,” Sorokin said.

Ghana: Petitioners say electoral commission forged list of foreign voters | Myjoyonline

The list of the 705 voters submitted by the Electoral commission as being names of Ghanaians registered in various diplomatic missions abroad to vote in the December 2012 polls, “was actually forged and contained several instances of multiple names and fake identities.” This was revealed in the affidavit of the petitioners challenging the outcome of the 2012 presidential elections. On Sunday, the petitioners filed their affidavits with supporting evidence to enable the hearing of the case to begin on April 16. According to the affidavit filed by Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the 2nd petitioner, the list of 705 names from various diplomatic missions abroad furnished by the EC (2nd respondent) contained “51 instances of repeated names to a total of 102.” Furthermore, many of the names supplied by the EC cannot be found in the general voters’ register presented to political parties before the election, the affidavit alleged.

Ohio: Suspected cases of election fraud involve only a small percentage of the total ballots cast | Cincinnati.com

Across the state 450 votes in the 2012 election have come under scrutiny, with 129 of those turned over to law enforcement for investigation, Secretary of State Jon Husted has exclusively told the Enquirer. In the majority of the cases, the fraud was an “attempted effort” and only a few actually cast two ballots, Husted said. Some of the 450 made an innocent mistake, unsure whether they cast an absentee ballot with no “nefarious” intentions, Husted said. But others intentionally tried to cast two ballots by voting in their home county and then going elsewhere to cast a provisional ballot. Those 129 votes are an infinitesimal 0.00229 percent of the 5.63 votes case in the 2012 presidential election. That’s roughly one out of every 43,478 votes.

Ghana: Electoral Commission has no hand in the signing of election 2012 documents | SpyGhana

The Electoral Commission (EC), has stated that it has not directed any of its officials to get people to sign any documents pertaining to the 2012 elections. After the declaration of the election results, “It was absolutely unnecessary to sign any form,” EC Public Relations Director, Mr Owusu Parry told this source. He was reacting to the arrest of three of its officials inTamale at the weekend, for possessing some unsigned pink sheets which they allegedly attempted to validate at Savelugu. They are the Deputy Northern Regional Director of the EC, Mr. Godfred Oakley, the Savelugu/Nanton district director of the commission, Mr. Benjamin Akomanua and a national service person, Salamatu Osman. Mr. Akomanua and Salamatu were alleged to have asked some returning officers in the area to sign 15 pink sheets that were in their possession at Savelugu on Sunday morning. They were however apprehended by some operatives of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and handed over to the Savelugu police.

Ghana: President re-elected, a result opposition claims was ‘manipulated’ | CNN.com

Ghana’s election commission announced Sunday night that the West African nation’s president won re-election, though the main opposition party says it has “credible evidence” the results were manipulated. In a statement streamed live on the Internet, Electoral Commission Chairman Kwadwo Afari-Gyan declared “John Dramani Mahama president-elect” after securing 50.7% of the vote. Nana Akufo-Addo, the candidate for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), garnered 47.7% of the vote, according to the commission.
“We must celebrate together as Ghanaians and refrain from anything that will derail the peace and unity we have enjoyed over the years,” Mahama told supporters after the result was announced. But reiterating claims made earlier that the vote had been “manipulated,” the New Patriotic Party issued a statement it has “credible evidence (that) undermines the integrity of the electoral process and the results.”

Ghana: Incumbent president declared winner by election commission | The Washington Post

President John Dramani Mahama was declared the winner Sunday of Ghana’s recent presidential election, according to provisional results, despite widespread technical glitches with the machines used to identify voters, and over the protest of the country’s opposition, which alleges vote-rigging. Armored tanks surrounded Ghana’s electoral commission and police barricaded the road around the electoral offices as the election body’s chairman Kwadwo Afari-Gyan announced that Mahama had polled 5.5 million votes, or 50.7 percent. Opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo, who lost the 2008 election by less than 1 percent, came in second with 5.2 million votes, or 47.7 percent, Afari-Gyan said. Voter turnout was high, with more than 80 percent of the roughly 14 million registered voters casting ballots in Friday’s presidential and parliamentary election.

Editorials: The Fraud of Voter Fraud | The Atlantic

Jane Mayer’s article on the invention of the voter-fraud myth is required reading as we go into the last day’s of the election. Mayer zeroes in on Hans von Spakovsky, a legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation who has been instrumental in turning gossamer, rumor and myth into state-level election law: Von Spakovsky offered me the names of two experts who, he said, would confirm that voter-impersonation fraud posed a significant peril: Robert Pastor, the director of the Center for Democracy and Election Management, at American University, and Larry Sabato, a political-science professor at the University of Virginia. Pastor, von Spakovsky noted, had spoken to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about being a victim of election fraud: voting in Georgia, he discovered that someone else had already voted under his name. When I reached Pastor, he clarified what had happened to him. “I think they just mistakenly checked my name when my son voted — it was just a mistake.”

Virginia: Investigation Launched Over Trashed Virginia Voter Registration Forms | NBC29

Is it a case of election fraud, voter suppression, or something far less sinister?  That’s what Rockingham County investigators are trying to find out, after someone trashed a folder of voter registration forms. Just hours before the Monday deadline for voter registration, a Harrisonburg store manager made a discovery that will keep eight citizens from being silenced.  Their completed registration forms were discarded like trash.  Investigators don’t yet know if it’s criminal activity or just bad business. A typical Monday afternoon at Tuesday Morning, a store in Harrisonburg, took a strange turn, when the manager Rob Johnson spotted someone putting a bag of trash in his recycling bin.  Johnson went to retrieve the misplaced refuse. “That’s when I realized, this bag is really light and looked inside,” Johnson said.  “There was the manila folder with the eight voter registration applications, and I was like, we’ve got something here.”

Russia: Elections preserve Putin’s dominance, opponents cry foul | Reuters

The ruling United Russia party won elections around the country on Sunday, early results showed, but opponents alleged widespread violations in the voting that will preserve President Vladimir Putin’s dominance. The first big elections since Putin began a new six-year term in May will do little to appease opponents who say he has used election fraud and suppression of dissent to maintain his grip on power. Results from contests from the Baltic Sea to Kamchatka on the Pacific Ocean showed United Russia had won or was heading for victory in all five provincial governorship races, and in several votes for provincial and city legislatures.

Florida: Suspicious voter registration forms found in 10 Florida counties | latimes.com

Florida elections officials said Friday that at least 10 counties have identified suspicious and possibly fraudulent voter registration forms turned in by a firm working for the Republican Party of Florida, which has filed an election fraud complaint with the state Division of Elections against its one-time consultant. The controversy in Florida — which began with possibly fraudulent forms that first cropped up in Palm Beach County —  has engulfed the Republican National Committee, which admitted Thursday that it urged state parties in seven swing states to hire the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting.The RNC paid the company at least $3.1 million — routed through the state parties of Florida, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia — to register voters and run get-out-the-vote operations. Wisconsin and Ohio had not yet paid the firm for get-out-the-vote operations it was contracted to do.

Florida: Voter registration problems widening in Florida | Yahoo! News

What first appeared to be an isolated problem in one Florida county has now spread statewide, with election officials in nine counties informing prosecutors or state election officials about questionable voter registration forms filled out on behalf of the Republican Party of Florida. State Republican officials already have fired the vendor it had hired to register voters, and took the additional step of filing an election fraud complaint against the company, Strategic Allied Consulting, with state officials. That complaint was handed over Friday to state law-enforcement authorities. A spokesman for Florida’s GOP said the matter was being treated seriously. “We are doing what we can to find out how broad the scope is,” said Brian Burgess, the spokesman. Florida is the battleground state where past election problems led to the chaotic recount that followed the 2000 presidential election.

New Jersey: Essex County NJ man convicted of absentee ballot fraud | Politicker NJ

An Essex County campaign worker was convicted today of absentee ballot fraud that occurred during the 2007 election of state Sen. Teresa Ruiz. John Fernandez, 61, of Belleville, was found guilty of election fraud following a two-week trial.  The jury found Fernandez guilty of charges of conspiracy (2nd degree), election fraud (2nd degree), absentee ballot fraud (3rd degree), tampering with public records or information (3rd degree), and forgery (4th degree). The Mercer County jury found that  Fernandez, who works for the Essex County Department of Economic Development, fraudulently tampered with documentation for absentee ballots in Ruiz’s Nov. 6, 2007 general election, submitting ballots on behalf of voters who never received the ballots or had an opportunity to cast their votes.

Belarus: Russia approves Belarus elections despite opposition boycott | GlobalPost

Sunday’s elections in Belarus might not meet international or western standards, but Russia gave its stamp of approval today. Voters made “a conscious choice” during the nationwide poll, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement, according to Voice of America. President Alexander Lukashenko’s ruling party swept the elections after opposition parties boycotted and suggested voters stay home. According to the Belarus Central Elections Commission, more than 74.3 percent of those eligible voted.