Belarus: Activists unmoved by election of two opposition MPs | The Guardian

Opposition candidates have won seats in parliamentary elections in Belarus for the first time since 2000, though critics of the ruling regime said they had been “appointed” to appease the west, and independent observers reported widespread vote-rigging. Anna Konopatskaya, of the United Civic party, won a district in Minsk, and Yelena Anisim, of the Belarusian Language Society, also won a seat. Anisim’s opponent, Yelena Zhuravlyova, a regime loyalist, unexpectedly withdrew from the race last month. Leading critics of the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for 22 years, were unimpressed.

Gabon: Opposition leader challenges presidential vote in court | CNN

Gabon opposition leader Jean Ping has appealed to the country’s highest court contesting last month’s presidential election — results that have led to deadly violence with opposition supporters protesting in the central African nation. Ping lodged a complaint Thursday with the Constitutional Court, his campaign team told CNN, demanding a vote recount. “I am committed to defend the vote of Gabon,” Ping said in a statement after meeting Friday with supporters in Libreville, the capital. “If the Gabonese people do not recognize themselves in the decision handed down by the Constitutional Court, I will stand by their side, by the side of the people to demand they respect Article 9 of the constitution that states unambiguously that the election of the president of the republic is gained by the candidate who obtains the most votes,” he said.

Gabon: Post-election turmoil escalates with court bid for recount | AFP

Gabon’s Jean Ping took his bid to have a wafer-thin presidential election loss overturned to the country’s top court Friday, as President Ali Bongo blamed the opposition leader for creating a climate of violence. Days of riots followed the August 31 announcement handing Bongo a narrow victory with a margin of some 6,000 votes, and Ping warned of more trouble to come if the court, which has 15 days to decide, rejects his recount appeal. “I greatly fear that another false step by the Constitutional Court will be the cause of deep and long-lasting instability in Gabon,” Ping told hundreds of supporters in Libreville. “If the Constitutional Court ignores the reality of the Gabonese vote, the people, who would have nothing left to lose… will take the future into their own hands,” said Ping, who continues to refer to himself as “president-elect”.

Gabon: Opposition leader challenges vote as mediation mission postponed | Reuters

Gabon’s opposition leader lodged a constitutional court challenge on Thursday against a presidential election he narrowly lost, hoping to overturn a result whose validity has been questioned at home and abroad. Former foreign minister Jean Ping lost the Aug. 27 election to President Ali Bongo by fewer than 6,000 votes, an outcome that sparked days of riots in which at least six people were killed. Ping’s spokesman said in a statement he would seek a recount in the province of Haut-Ogooue, a stronghold of the Bongo family, who have ruled the central African oil-producing nation of 1.8 million for nearly half a century.

Editorials: The Disputed Vote in Gabon | The New York Times

For nearly 42 years, Omar Bongo ruled Gabon, presiding over a system of patronage that funneled much of the country’s oil wealth to his family, his clan and his cronies, while leaving most Gabonese short of housing, education, hospitals and hope. When Mr. Bongo died in 2009, his son, Ali Bongo Ondimba, succeeded him, winning an election marred by allegations of fraud and followed by violence. Many Gabonese hoped a new presidential election held on Aug. 27 would be different. That hope has been dashed. After election results last Wednesday gave Mr. Bongo a slim victory over his main challenger, Jean Ping, violence erupted in Libreville, the capital. Mr. Bongo responded by sending in the army and temporarily suspending the internet. At least six people died and more than 1,000 were arrested.

Gabon: EU Observers Note Anomaly in Gabon Voter Turnout Results | Associated Press

The European Union observation mission in Gabon said Tuesday it noted an anomaly in voting results from President Ali Bongo Ondimba’s stronghold province that pushed him over the edge to win re-election by a slim margin. Election commission results showed Mr. Bongo beat opposition contender Jean Ping in Gabon’s Aug. 27 presidential vote by 1.57 percentage points. Clashes quickly broke out in the Central African country after the results were announced last week, with opposition supporters claiming fraud and burning buildings and looting stores. Mr. Ping on Friday declared himself the rightful winner of the vote.

Gabon: President Balks at EU Suggestion of Election Recount | VoA News

Gabonese President Ali Bongo, who has been accused by opposition politicians of voter fraud, resisted calls Wednesday for a recount of votes cast in the country’s presidential election, saying he has no power to order one. European Union observers in Gabon have said there was an “obvious anomaly” in election results that showed Bongo narrowly defeating challenger Jean Ping. The EU observer mission to Gabon is questioning results from Upper Ogooue province, a Bongo stronghold where the incumbent president officially won 95 percent of the votes amid 99 percent voter turnout. The opposition has said the vote tallies in the province were vastly inflated. In a statement Tuesday, the EU mission noted that turnout was significantly lower in Gabon’s eight other provinces, averaging just 48 percent nationwide. “An analysis of the number of non-voters and blank and spoiled ballots reveals an obvious anomaly in the final results of Upper Ogooue,” it said. “…the integrity of the provisional results in this province is consequently compromised.”

Gabon: Chad’s president set to mediate in disputed Gabon election | The Guardian

An African strongman accused of rigging elections in his own country is preparing to mediate between the two sides contesting the result of last week’s poll in Gabon. Chad’s president, Idriss Déby, who has ruled his country for 26 years, is expected to lead an African Union delegation that is preparing to go to Libreville to try to resolve the crisis. Both sides claimed victory, and post-election clashes between protesters and Gabon’s security forces have left up to 100 people dead, according to the opposition. Hundreds of people been have arrested, the national parliament was torched and the opposition headquarters stormed.

Editorials: Yes, the U.S. presidential election could be manipulated | William R. Sweeney Jr., Chad Vickery and Katherine Ellena/The Washington Post

Is the U.S. presidential election vulnerable to manipulation by a losing candidate? Could the integrity of our electoral process be successfully challenged? Unfortunately, the answer to these questions is yes. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) has supported the integrity of political and electoral processes in more than 145 countries for nearly 30 years. We have developed a rigorous methodology to analyze vulnerabilities throughout the electoral process, drawing on international standards and commitments that stem from fundamental rights guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international accords. We have applied this in multiple countries to fortify elections against malpractice, fraud and systemic manipulation. From this global perspective and experience, we have increasingly seen the credibility of elections — and, in some cases, the stability of the election environment — hinge on the ability of electoral institutions, and in particular the election dispute resolution process, to withstand increasingly sophisticated political manipulation.

Gabon: Tension eases in Gabon capital after riots over disputed election | Reuters

Tension eased in Gabon’s capital on Saturday after days of deadly rioting triggered by an announcement that President Ali Bongo narrowly won re-election in a vote the opposition said was stolen. More than 1,000 others were arrested in the protests that began on Wednesday and the opposition, led by Jean Ping who claims he is now president, said five people also died. Shops began to re-open on Saturday and some traffic returned to the streets as the government sought to restore stability with mass arrests and a heavy security presence. At the same time some impoverished residents of Libreville who need to buy food every day said they hoped for a return to normality given the hardship caused by closed shops and markets. “The last few days were really difficult for us. The fact that traffic has started to move is very important … because our families have really suffered,” said Alex Ndong, 42, a mechanic who lives in the Lalala suburb of south Libreville. “I hope everything goes back to normal as quickly as possible,” he said.

Gabon: Violence After Gabon Elections Leaves One Dead | The New York Times

Postelection violence in Gabon left one person dead on Thursday after officials declared the incumbent president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, the winner in a race that the opposition said had been marked by fraud. A civilian, who was not identified, died as security forces encircled the party headquarters of the opposition candidate, Jean Ping, early Thursday after hundreds of people had taken to the streets of the capital, Libreville. The protesters had set fires and insisted that Mr. Bongo had stolen the vote to claim a second term in office. Violence surged almost immediately after the release of election results Wednesday night that said Mr. Bongo, whose family has held the presidency since the late 1960s, had narrowly edged out Mr. Ping in voting on Saturday. The military was sent in to quell the demonstrations, aiming tear gas at protesters who were demanding a recount.

Gabon: Tension mounts as Gabon awaits results of presidential vote | Associated Press

Security forces fanned out across Gabon’s capital and residents stockpiled food on Tuesday as the central African country awaited results of a hotly contested presidential election. The most prominent opposition candidate, Jean Ping, was looking to defeat incumbent President Ali Bongo Ondimba and topple a family dynasty that stretches back to the 1960s. Bongo, 57, came to power after the death of his father, Omar Bongo, who ruled Gabon for more than 40 years. Ping, 73, has spent the three days since Saturday’s vote predicting victory and calling on Bongo to step down. Bongo’s camp, meanwhile, has said the president is sure to win.

Gabon: Presidential poll ‘lacked transparency’: EU observers | AFP

Gabon’s presidential election “lacked transparency”, the head of the 73-strong EU electoral monitoring team in the country said on Monday, a day before the official results were due out. Speaking to reporters in the capital Libreville, Bulgarian MEP Mariya Gabriel said Saturday’s vote in the oil-rich Central African country, was “managed in a way that lacked transparency.” “The mission condemns the lack of transparency in the electoral bodies which failed to make essential information available to the campaigns, like the electoral roll or a list of polling stations,” she said. The EU observers said that a week before the election only half of voters had received their ballot cards. The remarks came after a bitterly disputed election in which both sides accused the other of electoral fraud. Official results will not be published until Tuesday, and there are fears that the tensions may erupt into a repeat of the violence seen after the disputed 2009 election.

Gabon: Both sides in Gabon presidential election claim victory | The Guardian

Supporters of Gabon’s president and his chief rival have both said they expect to win an election that has proved to be the most serious challenge yet to the Bongo family’s half-century rule. The rival, Jean Ping, 73, traded accusations of fraud that raised the prospect of increased tension in the wake of an uncharacteristically bitter campaign. Ping distributed figures showing him easily beating incumbent Ali Bongo Ondimba in Saturday’s vote. “The general trends indicate we are the winner of this important presidential election,” Ping told reporters and a large crowd of cheering supporters gathered at his campaign headquarters in the capital, Libreville. “Despite numerous irregularities … you have managed to thwart this regime’s congenital traps of fraud.”

National: Data Shows Trump’s Election-Rigging Claim is Unlikely | Government Technology

… At a campaign rally in Altoona, Pa., on Aug. 12 [Trump] alleged that a poor showing could only mean one thing: “The only way we can lose, in my opinion — I really mean this, Pennsylvania — is if cheating goes on. I really believe it.” Trump said, alluding to political subterfuge from the Clinton campaign. Since that rally, Trump has held to these assertions of foul play while his critics have cast them as highly dangerous for the democratic process. However, for those close to the matter — voting officials and voters’ rights groups — the conspiracy theory is a bit bewildering. Pamela Smith, the president of VerifiedVoting.org, is among these. Her organization — a nonpartisan voting advocacy, accountability and research group — has gained notoriety since it was founded in 2003 for its work tracking election tech, legislation and voting procedures. In this time, Smith said incidents of voter fraud and rigged elections have been nearly nonexistent. “It’s frustrating because I think a lot of people may get the mistaken impression that there are some major areas of vulnerability,“ Smith said. “But they may not be aware of things election officials do already, or the true scope of the issue.” A look at current and historical data, said Smith, indicates that the potential for cheating is uniquely limited. Voter ID fraud is nearly nonexistent; purchasing votes is too tricky to cover up, at least at a national or county level; and hacking voting machines and software is ineffectual since usage of the systems is low and controlled. “Because our elections are really decentralized, it’s also not like there’s a single point of vulnerability out of 9,000 jurisdictions we have in the U.S.,” Smith said.

Russia: Putin’s Election Grip Is So Tight Even His Nemesis Khodorkovsky Can Take Part | Bloomberg

The last time Vladimir Putin’s political party won national elections, ballot-stuffing allegations sparked the biggest protests of his rule. Five years on, Putin appears to be so confident in his hold on power that even his most dogged adversary is welcome to challenge United Russia in next month’s parliamentary polls — Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the London-based former oil billionaire who was charged with murder in absentia in December. Khodorkovsky, who spent a decade in prison, is back doing what he says got him jailed in the first place: supporting Putin’s opponents. All but one of the 19 candidates he’s grooming have been accepted by authorities overseeing the vote. Since being freed in 2013, Khodorkovsky has vowed to use what’s left of his fortune to hasten the end of the Putin era, though he admits the Kremlin’s grip on the electoral process is so strong it has nothing to fear, for now.

Editorials: Donald Trump, a ‘Rigged’ Election and the Politics of Race | Maggie Haberman/The New York Times

As he seeks to revive his embattled candidacy, Donald J. Trump has seized on a new argument to rally his supporters and to explain away a possible defeat in November: that Democrats are preparing to exploit weak voter identification laws to win a “stolen election” through fraudulent voting. The claim has spurred outrage among Democrats and has alarmed some Republicans who worry his tactics will backfire, angering minority voters and threatening the party’s chances in close races down the ballot. Since 2010, Republican governors and Republican-held state legislatures have fought for stricter voter identification laws, which Democrats argue are intended to hinder turnout by the poorest voters, many of them black and Hispanic, who tend to vote Democratic. But Mr. Trump’s language has moved beyond his party’s call for rigid identification requirements and the unfounded claims that polls are “skewed” to predictions of outright theft of the November election. And his warnings have been cast in increasingly urgent and racially suggestive language, hinting that the only legitimate outcome in certain states would be his victory.

National: Donald Trump claims the election might be ‘rigged.’ Here’s how voting really works | Los Angeles Times

Of all the controversies that have cropped up during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, his assertion that the general election could be “rigged” inspired one of the swiftest rebuttals. A fundamental part of any election is widespread acceptance of the validity of the results, and if Trump were to lose and claim fraud without evidence, political scientists and others argued, he would undermine the electoral process. Trump, increasingly losing ground in polls, told supporters at a rally this month that he’s afraid the election results won’t reflect voters’ intent. He threw his support behind voter ID rules while campaigning in Wilmington, N.C., this week, saying they help protect against fraud. But an appeals court ruled last month that the state’s voter ID law was enacted “with discriminatory intent” against black voters. Some state legislatures have promoted voter ID laws as a way to prevent election fraud, while critics contend that the regulations target and disenfranchise minority voters, who tend to vote for Democrats. Some of Trump’s supporters share his concern. According to a poll released by Public Policy Polling this week, 69% of Trump backers in North Carolina think a Hillary Clinton win would be the result of a rigged election. But an examination of how votes are cast and tallied in the U.S. shows that it would be extremely difficult for anyone to commit voter fraud at a scale that would tip an election or for election officials to rig balloting. This is how the voting process works: There is no national system or code that dictates how election votes should be tabulated.

Russia: Parliamentary elections being rigged, says Russian opposition | Reuters

Russian opposition leader Mikhail Kasyanov said on Thursday parliamentary elections next month were being rigged against his party, meaning it would have to win up to three times more votes than legally necessary to get into parliament. Starved of air time, vilified by Kremlin-backed media, and physically attacked on the stump, Kasyanov and his allies in the People’s Freedom party or PARNAS face an uphill struggle to break into the 450-seat lower house of parliament on Sept. 18. Despite an economic crisis, the main pro-Kremlin United Russia party is expected to comfortably win the elections, which are seen as a dry run for Vladimir Putin’s presidential re-election campaign in 2018. The crisis means United Russia’s margin of victory may be slimmer than recent years however, giving PARNAS, which currently has no seats in parliament, a glimmer of hope.

Missouri: St. Louis Election Board asks local prosecutor and U.S. attorney to review allegations of voter fraud | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Election Board of Commissioners has referred allegations of voter fraud in the race for the 78th District state representative to the city’s top prosecutor and the U.S. attorney’s office. “The written complaint received this morning contained the serious allegation that evidence exists of illegal activity regarding the absentee ballot process,” the commissioners wrote in a news release Wednesday afternoon, in explaining its action. The action was taken after a large group of residents walked into the downtown Election Board offices Wednesday morning, asking to talk with Democratic Director Mary Wheeler-Jones. Each person had in hand a signed form letter, alleging that absentee ballots cast in the Aug. 2 primary race between newcomer Bruce Franks and incumbent Penny Hubbard were “obtained illegally, were tampered with, or both.”

Russia: Duma election: What to expect | New Eastern Europe

Over the past few years, the Russian authorities have been gradually rolling out a strategy for managing the upcoming State Duma election. What are the elements of this strategy, and will it help the Kremlin achieve its objectives? Like most modern authoritarian regimes which organise elections, the regime in Russia aspires to be viewed as broadly legitimate while keeping political pluralism highly constrained. These two objectives, evidently, are difficult to reconcile. In order to increase legitimacy, the regime allows more electoral competition, but at the same time it has an incentive to minimise competition, to which end it resorts to heavy-handed tactics including fraud, undermining its legitimacy. Electoral authoritarian regimes such as Russia’s employ idiosyncratic strategies to balance the dual objectives of maintaining legitimacy and limiting competition. They thereby face inevitable trade-offs in crafting their strategies and must regularly adapt them to account for changing circumstances. In the previous Duma election of 2011, the authorities sought to bank on the perceived strength of the ruling United Russia party and on the administrative capacity of the authorities (at different levels) to deliver required election results. This strategy had several flaws. Fewer people than anticipated were ready to vote for United Russia. Analyses of the voting results show that in many areas where no major election fraud was committed, only a quarter to a third of votes went to the ruling party. In order to get a (slight) majority of seats in the Duma, major election fraud was necessary. It was met by significant upheaval, mainly in the form of a wave of popular protests that drew the biggest crowds in Russia since the early 1990s. The fallout from the 2011 election was viewed in Russian political circles as a serious crisis.

Editorials: If you’re worried about rigged elections, look at Trump’s tactics first | Rick Hasen/ LA Times

Donald Trump has begun claiming that the only way he can lose the 2016 presidential election is if the voting is rigged. But if there’s a threat to the integrity of the election, it’s coming from Trump himself, and the best response may be for Democrats and voting rights activists to take him to court to protect the franchise. Let’s start with a fair definition of “rigging”: An election is rigged when eligible voters are prevented from voting, when some voters can vote multiple times, when ineligible voters are allowed to vote, or when vote totals are changed, all with an intent to affect an election outcome.

National: Pants on Fire!: Donald Trump’s baseless claims about the election being ‘rigged’ | PolitiFact

Donald Trump preemptively challenged the results of the November presidential election, claiming in media appearances and rallies that the entire system is “rigged.” Trump’s charges of election fraud are not new to his campaign. He’s tweeted about dead voters delivering President Barack Obama’s victory in 2012, floated charges about multiple voting in the primaries, and suggested…

Zambia: Lungu Leading as Opposition Demands Partial Recount | Bloomberg

Zambian president Edgar Lungu led his main election challenger Hakainde Hichilema as the vote count drew to a close amid complaints of irregularities by the main opposition and demands for a recount in the province with the most registered voters. Verified results from 132 of the 156 constituencies showed Lungu with 50.1 percent of the 2.9 million valid votes cast on Aug. 11 and Hichilema with 47.7 percent, the Electoral Commission of Zambia said Sunday. A candidate must win a majority to avoid a runoff. A high voter turnout and delays in transmitting results from regional centers has held up the release of tallies, commission Chairman Esau Chulu said Saturday. “We have formally requested a recount in Lusaka urban constituencies due to the high number of irregularities identified in the counting and transmission process,” Stephen Katuka, secretary general at Hichilema’s United Party for National Development, said in an e-mail. “The evidence clearly shows that without this recount the election would be severely compromised and could result in a stolen election.”
The law provides that the party can raise a petition within seven days “if they feel that something is not right,” Electoral Commission of Zambia spokesman Crispin Akufuna said in an interview.

Zambia: Incumbent President ahead in early vote count, opposition cries foul | Reuters

President Edgar Lungu was ahead of his main rival on Saturday in early counting from Zambia’s presidential election, but the main opposition said its count showed their candidate ahead and the vote may have been rigged. Lungu faces a stiff challenge from United Party for National Development (UPND) leader Hakainde Hichilema, who accuses him of failing to steer the economy out of its slump after Africa’s second-largest copper producer was hit by weak commodity prices. He led with 262,149 votes against Hichilema’s 243,794 after 29 of the country’s 156 constituencies in Thursday’s voting had been collated, the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) told a news conference also attended by political parties. Early results announced on Saturday from only eight constituencies had put Hichilema ahead. In a statement, the UPND said data from its own parallel counting system showed Hichilema beating Lungu “with a clear margin”, based on about 80 percent of votes counted.

National: Americans have become much less confident that we count votes accurately | The Washington Post

Donald Trump’s warning that the 2016 election is likely to be “rigged” has rightfully alarmed many observers, both here and abroad. Although the GOP nominee has provided no evidence of potential fraud, our research suggests that many voters may be receptive to his far-fetched claim, which could erode faith in the electoral system. Disputes over election results aren’t new, of course. In the wake of the 2000 presidential contest, ballot irregularities and the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore — which ended a recount in Florida and effectively handed the election to George W. Bush — led some Democrats to question the legitimacy of the outcome. Following Bush’s reelection in 2004, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote a 2006 article in Rolling Stone claiming that Bush’s campaign had stolen the election. The culprit for many Democrats was electronic voting machines that could be hacked to flip Democratic votes to the Republican column. Trailing in the polls to Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign, John McCain warned in a debate that the advocacy organization ACORN was engaging in voter registration fraud and was “on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” When Obama defeated McCain and Mitt Romney in 2012, Republicans became more likely to express doubts about the legitimacy of those elections.

Editorials: Questioning If An Election Will Be ‘Rigged’ Strikes At The Heart Of Democracy | Danielle Kurzleben/NPR

On Dec. 13, 2000, after perhaps the most hotly contested presidential election in American history (and a Supreme Court decision that divided Americans), Al Gore did one of the most important things that keeps American democracy working: he conceded. “Let there be no doubt: While I strongly disagree with the court’s decision, I accept it,” he said in a seven-minute statement. He added, “And tonight for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.” No one expected a recount process that would drag out until December. But this year, before the ballots are even cast — much less counted — Donald Trump is signaling that he is ready to challenge the presidential election results. “I’m telling you, Nov. 8, we’d better be careful, because that election is going to be rigged,” Trump told Fox News earlier this week. “And I hope the Republicans are watching closely or it’s going to be taken away from us.” His former adviser and longtime associate Roger Stone elaborated later in the week that the campaign should encourage supporters to challenge any unfavorable results. “I think he’s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be a rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath,” he said. “The government will be shut down if they attempt to steal this and swear Hillary in. No, we will not stand for it. We will not stand for it.”

National: For Trump, a new ‘rigged’ system: The election itself | The Washington Post

Donald Trump, trailing narrowly in presidential polls, has issued a warning to worried Republican voters: The election will be “rigged” against him — and he could lose as a result. Trump pointed to several court cases nationwide in which restrictive laws requiring voters to show identification have been thrown out. He said those decisions open the door to fraud in November. “If the election is rigged, I would not be surprised,” he told The Washington Post in an interview Tuesday afternoon. “The voter ID situation has turned out to be a very unfair development. We may have people vote 10 times.” Those comments followed a claim Trump made Monday, to an audience in Ohio, that “the election is going to be rigged.” That same day, in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, he beseeched Republicans to start “watching closely” or the election will be “taken away from us” through fraud.

Editorials: Feel The State Tremble | Josh Marshal/TPM

It may not seem terribly important right now with all the stories roiling the campaign. But I think there’s a good chance it’s the most important. Over the last 48 hours Trump’s allies, surrogates and now Trump himself have forcibly injected the topic of voter fraud or ‘election rigging’ into the election. Longtime TPM Readers know this topic has probably been the publication’s single greatest and most consistent focus over fifteen years. The subject has been investigated countless times. And it is clear that voter fraud and especially voter impersonation fraud is extremely rare – rare almost to the point of non-existence, though there have been a handful of isolated cases. Vote fraud is clearly the aim in what is coming from Trump allies. But Trump’s own comment – “I’m afraid the election’s gonna be rigged, I have to be honest” – seems to suggest some broader effort to manufacture votes or falsify numbers, to allude to some broader conspiracy. Regardless, Trump is now pressing this issue to lay the groundwork to discredit and quite possibly resist the outcome of the November election.

Kansas: House candidate seeks grand jury investigation into Kobach | The Wichita Eagle

A candidate for the Kansas House wants to convene a grand jury to investigate Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Steven X. Davis, a Democratic candidate for the Kansas House from Lawrence, filed a petition with the Douglas Country District Court to summon a grand jury to investigate whether the secretary of state’s office committed election fraud in 2014. Davis, who is challenging incumbent Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence, in House District 44, said the secretary of state’s office may have intentionally failed to register voters who had tried to register through the state’s online system during the last election, even if they provided proof of citizenship documents as required by Kansas law.