Turkey: Erdogan declares referendum victory, opponents plan challenge | Reuters

President Tayyip Erdogan declared victory in a referendum on Sunday to grant him sweeping powers in the biggest overhaul of modern Turkish politics, but opponents said the vote was marred by irregularities and they would challenge its result. Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast and its three main cities, including the capital Ankara and the largest city Istanbul, looked set to vote “No” after a bitter and divisive campaign. Erdogan said 25 million people had supported the proposal, which will replace Turkey’s parliamentary system with an all-powerful presidency and abolish the office of prime minister, giving the “Yes” camp 51.5 percent of the vote. That appeared short of the decisive victory for which he and the ruling AK Party had aggressively campaigned. Nevertheless, thousands of flag-waving supporters rallied in Ankara and Istanbul in celebration.

Ecuador: Electoral Council to recount 1.3 million election votes as opposition leader alleges fraud | Associated Press

Ecuador election officials have agreed to recount nearly 1.3 million votes as opposition leader Guillermo Lasso continues to allege fraud in the presidential election. The National Electoral Council announced late Thursday it would recount all ballots contested in complaints filed by both parties, about 10 per cent of the total vote. Official results from the small Andean nation’s April 2 election showed former banker Lasso lost by less than 3 percentage points to Rafael Correa’s hand-picked successor, Lenin Moreno. International observers including the Organization of American States have said they found no irregularities, though Lasso claims his campaign found numerous inconsistencies and has refused to accept the official results.

Ecuador: Electoral Council to recount 12 percent of presidential votes | AFP

Ecuador will recount almost 1.3 million ballots from the country’s presidential election earlier this month, 12 percent of the total, the National Electoral Council (CNE) has said. Socialist Lenin Moreno won the April 2 second round with a 51.15 percent share — more than 226,000 votes ahead of his conservative rival Guillermo Lasso, who has alleged fraud, refused to accept the result and asked for a full recount. In a statement issued late Thursday, the electoral council said it approved a “recount of the votes corresponding to the disputed tallies” to be held Tuesday.

Ecuador: Election Recount: Lasso Loses 100 Votes, Moreno up 143 | teleSUR

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa confirmed Tuesday that with the recount requested by the right-wing opposition, former presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso lost 100 votes, while President elect Lenin Moreno gained an additional 143 votes. After coming in 2 percent behind Moreno in the April 2 run-off vote, Lasso alleged the elections were fraudulent, basing his claims largely on favorable exit polls that has projected a win for him and his running mate Andres Paez. Days later, after the National Electoral Council, known as CNE, officially delcared Moreno the winner with more than 99 percent of votes counted, Lasso requested a vote-by-vote recount.

Ecuador: Presidential Recount Done, Official Report Due Monday | teleSUR

Ecuador’s National Electoral Council announced Sunday that the presidential vote recount was finished, saying it would make an official announcement of results Monday. For days, Lasso and his CREO-SUMA coalition have claimed the elections were “fraudulent” and “rigged” in favor of Moreno, despite the fact that the Organization of American States international observers found “no discrepancies between the observed records and the official data” from the National Electoral Council. Since the election, Argentina, Paraguay, Panama, Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, El Salvador, Colombia and Venezuela and even the U.S. have all congratulated Moreno on his election win.

Ecuador: Ruling party accepts a recount of votes as demanded by the opposition | MercoPress

In a surprise move, Ecuador’s ruling party, Country Alliance, has called for a recount of the votes cast in the weekend’s presidential election. Its candidate, Lenin Moreno, had won the election by the narrowest margin, with 51.16% of the vote. Moreno is considered the “heir apparent” of previous President Rafael Correa, who has been in office for three terms. For days, Guillermo Lasso, a former banker and Ecuador’s conservative challenger for the presidency, who recorded 48.86% of the vote, has been alleging fraud and vote rigging. Despite these accusations, the Organization of American States election observers “found no discrepancies between the observed records and the official data”. In calling Lasso’s bluff on Wednesday, Country Alliance took the opportunity to denounce his bad faith.

Ecuador: All sides call for recount in Ecuador’s presidential election | Euronews

In a surprise move, Ecuador’s ruling party, Country Alliance, has called for a recount of the votes cast in the weekend’s presidential election. Its candidate, Lenin Moreno, had won the election by the narrowest margin, with 51.16% of the vote. Moreno is considered the “heir apparent” of previous President Rafael Correa, who has been in office for three terms. For days, Guillermo Lasso, a former banker and Ecuador’s conservative challenger for the presidency, who recorded 48.86% of the vote, has been alleging fraud and vote rigging. Supporters of Lasso’s Creo Suma, or Creating Opportunities, party have taken up his cry. One, a protester named Gustavo Palacio, said:

Wisconsin: Bill would have prevented Jill Stein’s Wisconsin recount | Associated Press

A proposal to limit election recounts that’s up for a hearing Wednesday would have prevented Jill Stein’s Wisconsin recount and increased public trust in the election system, one Republican lawmaker said. “We need to make sure people aren’t using elections as a political tool,” the bill’s author, Sen. Devin LeMahieu, said at a Senate Committee on Elections and Utilities hearing. The bill from LeMahieu and GOP Rep. Ron Tusler would only allow candidates in statewide elections who trail the leading candidate by 1 percent or less of the total number of votes to petition for a recount. Had the bill been in place in November, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who lost to Republican Donald Trump by a margin of less than 1 percent in Wisconsin, would have been able to petition for a recount. But not Stein. She came in fourth but raised more than $3.5 million to fund Wisconsin’s recount. The state’s election commission later refunded Stein $1.5 million after costs were less than estimated.

Ecuador: Moreno Backs Vote Recount to Disprove Election Fraud | teleSUR

Ecuadorean President-elect Lenin Moreno’s Alianza Pais party announced plans on Wednesday to support a vote recount to prove Sunday’s second-round presidential election was legal and transparent. For days, right-wing presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso and his CREO-SUMA coalition have claimed the elections were “fraudulent” and “rigged” in favor of Moreno, despite the fact that Organization of American States election observers found “no discrepancies between the observed records and the official data” from the CNE. Since the election Argentina, Paraguay, Panama, Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, El Salvador, Colombia, and Venezuela have all congratulated Moreno on his election win. But Lasso has refused to relent, even inciting violent protests in several cities across Ecuador, demanding a vote recount the rest of the region doesn’t believe is necessary.

Ecuador: Leftist candidate Moreno leads Ecuador vote as rival alleges fraud | AFP

Right-wing opposition candidate Guillermo Lasso alleged fraud Sunday in Ecuador’s presidential runoff election, vowing to contest results that had his rival Lenin Moreno extending a decade of socialist rule. Moreno, the designated heir to President Rafael Correa’s “21st-century socialism,” had 51.07 percent of the vote to 48.93 percent for ex-banker Lasso, with 94.2 percent of districts reporting, said the National Electoral Council. Lasso said his campaign had evidence of an attempt to rig the results. “We are going to defend the will of the Ecuadoran people in the face of an attempted fraud that aims to install what would be an illegitimate government,” he said, setting up what could be a long and ugly fight.

Vermont: Recount ends after ballot discrepancy found | The Bennington Banner

More than three months after the last vote was cast, Vermont’s election season appears to be finally over. Republican Robert Frenier’s state House seat is safe after a second recount effort, this time in the Vermont House, came to a sudden halt Wednesday morning. The recount of a race between five-term incumbent progressive Susan Hatch Davis and Frenier was stopped on a technicality moments after it began. About two dozen lawmakers met to begin the recount Wednesday morning at the Vermont Statehouse. Recount leaders then announced that a bag containing ballots from Chelsea, Vermont, had a different identification number than was expected, which under House rules amounts to a “tampering” violation and ends the process.

Wisconsin: Scott Walker signals support for recount changes | Wisconsin State Journal

Gov. Scott Walker signaled support Wednesday for a bill that would only allow candidates to request a recount in state and local races if they trail the winner by a certain margin. The bill is a direct response to last year’s presidential recount that was triggered and paid for by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who received 1 percent of the vote. The recount, which cost Stein’s campaign a little more than $2 million and county and municipal clerks thousands of hours of additional work during a traditionally busy time of year, resulted in Donald Trump extending his lead over Hillary Clinton by 131 votes. It also revealed more than 11,000 errors in how ballots were counted on election night out of 3 million total votes cast, but no major flaws in the state election system. Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, and Reps. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, R-Fond du Lac, and Ron Tusler, R-Harrison, are lead sponsors of the bill, which LeMahieu said in December he would introduce in response to the recount. Walker also signaled support for such a proposal then, but details weren’t yet available.

Wisconsin: Lawmakers Look To Change Wisconsin Recount Law | Wisconsin Public Radio

A new proposal from state lawmakers would only allow second place finishers to request election recounts in Wisconsin, a policy change that would have prevented Wisconsin’s recent presidential recount. The new proposal says only a second place finisher who comes within one percent of the winner can request a recount. That would have been about 7,5000 votes in the last presidential election. The bill’s sponsors say it’s in response to the presidential recount requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein last year. Stein only received about one percent of the vote in Wisconsin.

Philippines: Supreme Court allows election recount for defeated Marcos | Reuters

The Philippine Supreme Court will allow a protest into the disputed election of the country’s vice president, giving the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos a chance to prove his claim that he was robbed of the number two post. Social activist Leni Robredo was elected vice president in May 2016, winning by about 260,000 votes over Marcos’ son and namesake. Popularly known as Bongbong, he said he was the rightful winner and votes were stolen from him. Marcos had asked the court to order a recount of more than a million votes in the south and nullification of balloting in three provinces. Robredo in turn asked the court to reject his petition. On Thursday, Marcos released the court’s Jan. 24 ruling which found his petition “sufficient in form and substance”.

National: The Inside Story of the Chaotic Trump-Clinton Recount | New Republic

Five days after Donald Trump was elected president, Alex Halderman was on a United Airlines flight from Newark to Los Angeles when he received an urgent email. A respected computer scientist and leading critic of security flaws in America’s voting machines, Halderman was anxious to determine whether there had been foul play during the election. Had machines in Wisconsin or Michigan been hacked? Could faulty software or malfunctioning equipment have skewed the results in Pennsylvania? “Before the election, I had been saying I really, really hope there’s not a hack and that it’s not close,” he says. “Afterwards, I thought, ‘Wait a minute, there’s enough reason here to be concerned.’ ” Now, wedged into a middle seat on the cross-country flight, Halderman stared in disbelief at the email from Barbara Simons, a fellow computer scientist and security expert. Working with Amy Rao, a Silicon Valley CEO and major Democratic fundraiser, Simons had arranged a conference call with John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, to make the case for taking a closer look at the election results. Could Halderman be on the call in 15 minutes? United’s wi-fi system didn’t allow for in-flight phone calls. But Halderman wasn’t fazed. “I’m blocked,” he emailed Simons, “but I can try.” Within minutes, Halderman had circumvented the wi-fi and established an interface with computers at the University of Michigan, where at 36 he is the youngest full professor in the history of the computer science department. He dialed in to the call but did not speak, afraid of drawing attention to the fact that he was violating the airline’s phone ban.

Vermont: Some Republicans and town clerks cry foul over recount | Burlington Free Press

A second recount for a state House seat has some Republicans and town clerks crying foul, but Democrats say the incumbent who lost has a right to ask the Legislature to resolve the contested election. Susan Hatch Davis, a Progressive from Washington, went to court after the November vote showed Republican Robert Frenier of Chelsea beat her by eight votes, and a recount showed he won by seven. The court refused to authorize a second recount, so Davis asked the Legislature to intervene. Now the House Republican leader is accusing Democrats of trying to steal a seat to prevent the GOP from sustaining a governor’s veto.

Vermont: Recount rankles Vermont GOP | Associated Press

A second Vermont recount for a state House seat has some Republicans and town clerks crying foul, but Democrats say the incumbent who lost has a right to ask the Legislature to resolve the contested election. Susan Hatch Davis, a Progressive from Washington, went to court after the November vote showed Republican Robert Frenier of Chelsea beat her by eight votes, and a recount showed he won by seven. The court refused to authorize a second recount, so Davis asked the Legislature to intervene. Now the House Republican leader is accusing Democrats of trying to steal a seat to prevent the GOP from sustaining a governor’s veto.

Michigan: Elections chief urges recount reform | The Detroit News

Michigan Bureau of Elections Director Chris Thomas called Thursday for a change in state law to make recounts easier after Detroit’s election night counting problems. The Michigan Bureau of Elections audited 136 of the city’s most irregular precincts — “the worst of the worst,” it said — after a Wayne County canvass revealed “significant discrepancies” in the number of voters and ballots in 392 Detroit precincts. After an extensive review, it was able to narrow nearly 600 uncounted-for votes to 216. “I think the time has come for at least a consideration of that,” Thomas said at a press conference following the release of an audit that concluded that discrepancies between the recorded number of votes and actual ballots cast in Detroit were the result of human error. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein requested a statewide recount that was stopped after nearly 40 percent of Michigan’s precincts were retallied because state and federal courts ruled she had no chance of winning, and thus wasn’t an “aggrieved” candidate under state law.

Michigan: Detroit clerk addresses troubled election; state audit shows no proof of voter fraud | Michigan Radio

Detroit city clerk Janice Winfrey has broken her public silence about irregularities in the city’s November’s election results. Michigan’s presidential recount was halted mid-process. But the partial recount revealed that more than half of Detroit precincts were legally ineligible to be recounted, because reported vote counts didn’t match the actual number of ballots. That prompted the state to launch an audit, which is still wrapping up. Winfrey has said very little during that time. But state elections officials have now said there is no evidence of fraud, a finding Winfrey reiterated that at a press conference Friday. Instead, she said it mostly revealed a lot of “human error” at the “precinct level.”

Editorials: If 3-5 Million Illegal Votes Were Cast, We Must Have a Precinct by Precinct Recount or a New Election | Richard Greene/The Huffington Post

On January 17 I put forth “The Argument for Donald Trump’s Illegitimacy”. I should have simply waited a few more days. Donald Trump just made an even stronger argument himself and the only thing America can now do to resolve this issue is to either conduct a thorough, precinct by precinct recount or to accept The President at his word, declare the results to be illegitimate and call for a new election. On December 4, 2016, the country of Austria did exactly that. They called for and conducted a whole new election because of relatively minor vote counting issues in some of their precincts, significantly less of an issue that we now have in The United States. But in his press conference Sean Spicer said that these 3 – 5 million illegal votes were irrelevant because “Donald Trump won 306 electoral votes”. But did he? How in the world can we be certain who these “illegal voters” voted for?

Editorials: Running for president showed me how our elections are broken. We can fix them | Jill Stein/The Guardian

After a divisive election, with record levels of public distrust for a political system dominated by Super Pacs and lobbyists, ordinary Americans joined together to begin healing our wounded democracy – by verifying the vote in three key states. For three weeks, a historic recount campaign pushed forward in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, defying political blockades, bureaucratic hurdles, legal maneuvering and financial intimidation. This unprecedented effort by more than 10,000 volunteers and 161,000 donors coalesced in a matter of days. It affirmed the determination of the American people to raise the bar for our democracy. At its core, the recount essentially asked one question: do we have a voting system we can trust, that is accurate secure and just, and free from modern-day Jim Crow in our elections? The answer, we found, is a resounding “no”.

Wisconsin: Recount raised ‘human error’ concerns among Wisconsin’s county clerks | Green Bay Press Gazette

Now that they’ve finished recounting roughly 3 million presidential election ballots, several clerks throughout eastern and central Wisconsin continue to worry about one aspect of the voting process. Human error. Some voters struggled to mark ballots correctly. Some made the correct marks, but used pens that scanning machines couldn’t read. Some forgot to have a witness sign an absentee ballot. Some election workers allowed unsigned absentee ballots to be counted. “One thing that surprised me (was) the amount of human errors that I’m still seeing with this election,” Fond du Lac County Clerk Lisa Freiberg said. Whether they might be able to improve the process, however, remains to be seen. Clerks agreed that machines used to tally votes worked as they were supposed to. But they also said the recount helped them discover human errors that, while they did not affect the overall outcome of the state’s presidential vote, might have been problematic in a local election in which fewer votes were cast.

Wisconsin: State Recount Costs Come in $2 Million Less Than Expected | Lake Mills Leader

Wisconsin’s presidential election recount costs will come in almost $2 million less than expected with only one county left to settle its bill. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein paid the state $3.9 million to start the recount but will be reimbursed with a final bill expected at $1.8 million, Wisconsin Elections Commission officials said. Brown County – the last of the state’s 72 counties to tally costs – is expected to have its final bill ready next week. Stein, who held a rally at the state Capitol Jan. 3, said she will use the leftover recount money to fund Count My Vote Wisconsin, an election reform and voting rights organization. Supporters donated money for Stein’s recount requests in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Wisconsin: Presidential Recount Expected To Come In Vastly Under Budget | Wisconsin Public Radio

The final cost of Wisconsin’s presidential recount will likely be about half of what was estimated. Seventy-one of the state’s 72 counties have reported their final recount costs to the state Elections Commission. The total is about $1.8 million. Last month, estimates from counties projected the cost of the recount to be about $3.8 million. Reid Magney, spokesman for the Elections Commission, said the overestimates were likely due to counties being “cautious” about the expense. “I think they probably, not knowing exactly what it would cost, wanted to make sure that their costs would be covered,” Magney said.

Wisconsin: Jill Stein: $1.5 million refund could pay for new voter advocacy group | Wisconsin State Journal

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein said a roughly $1.5 million refund from the Wisconsin recount could go toward a new voter advocacy effort in the state. Stein, who received about 1 percent of the vote and gained 66 votes in the recount, held a rally Tuesday at the state Capitol to address the results of the state’s historic recount, which her campaign paid $3.5 million to initiate, and launch Count My Vote Wisconsin. … Stein’s campaign raised more than $7 million in a short period to fund recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Only the Wisconsin recount made it past court challenges seeking to halt all three.

Wisconsin: Presidential recount cost far less than $3.9 million estimate | FOX6

Wisconsin’s presidential recount, which produced very few changes to the Election Night tally, will end up costing far less than the original $3.9 million estimate. With 69 of the 72 counties reporting, the actual cost is a little more than $1.8 million – about half the original estimate, according to data provided to FOX6 News by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Kenosha, Brown and Pierce counties have not yet reported, but Elections Administrator Mike Haas said he expects their final numbers this week. Combined, clerks in the three counties had expected the recount to cost them around $500,000.CLICK HERE to view the election recount estimates, actual cost

National: Post-recount, experts say electronic voting remains ‘shockingly’ vulnerable | The Parallax

As the Obama administration took tough action against Russia for interfering with the 2016 U.S. election this week, two experts in U.S. voting-machine security offered evidence at Europe’s largest annual hacker conference here they say proves that while the voting machines used in the November presidential election were not hacked, U.S. voting systems remain “shockingly” exposed to hackers. “We knew on November 8 that hacking was possible,” J. Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer science professor who specializes in testing voting-machine security, said Wednesday in front of a crowd of more than 1,000 attendees of the 33rd annual Chaos Communication Congress. Prior to Election Day, as Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that the election would be “rigged” against him, email servers belonging to the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, as well as voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona, were hacked. And after the election, which resulted in Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote by a substantial margin but Trump winning more votes in the overriding Electoral College, many people, including Green Party candidate Jill Stein, called into question whether votes had been tallied without interference. Trump also alleged on Twitter that if it wasn’t for “the millions of people who voted illegally,” he would have won the popular vote. “Shockingly—at least shockingly to me and many other people, even under these circumstances—approximately zero U.S. states were going to look at enough paper ballots to know whether the computers had been hacked,” Halderman said. “This is a major gap in our system.”

Wisconsin: Recount found thousands of errors, but no major flaws in state election system | Wisconsin State Journal

Wisconsin’s first statewide presidential recount found no major problems with the state’s voting system, but it did reveal several errors affecting thousands of ballots that could spur local clerks to tighten procedures, according to a Wisconsin State Journal review of the results. The recount revealed a yawn-inducing shift in the presidential election results — President-elect Donald Trump extended his lead over Democrat Hillary Clinton by 131 votes and total votes increased by about 400 out of nearly 3 million cast. Recount proponents had raised concerns about Russia possibly tampering with election results, but the recount found no evidence to support such claims. However, the small net change in votes obscured that there were thousands of both positive and negative swings in the final totals. At least 9,039 presidential votes weren’t counted correctly on Election Night, and only were added to the official results because of the recount, the State Journal review found. Another 2,161 votes were originally counted but later tossed out for reasons including to square vote totals with the number of voters who signed the poll book.

National: Recounts or no, US elections are still vulnerable to hacking | Associated Press

Jill Stein’s bid to recount votes in Pennsylvania was in trouble even before a federal judge shot it down Dec. 12. That’s because the Green Party candidate’s effort stood little chance of detecting potential fraud or error in the vote — there was basically nothing to recount. Pennsylvania is one of 11 states where the majority of voters use antiquated machines that store votes electronically, without printed ballots or other paper-based backups that could be used to double-check the balloting. There’s almost no way to know if they’ve accurately recorded individual votes — or if anyone tampered with the count. More than 80 percent of Pennsylvanians who voted Nov. 8 cast their ballots on such machines, according to VotePA, a nonprofit seeking their replacement. VotePA’s Marybeth Kuznik described the proposed recount this way: “You go to the computer and you say, ‘OK, computer, you counted this a week-and-a-half ago. Were you right the first time?'” These paperless digital voting machines, used by roughly 1 in 5 U.S. voters last month, present one of the most glaring dangers to the security of the rickety, underfunded U.S. election system. Like many electronic voting machines, they are vulnerable to hacking. But other machines typically leave a paper trail that could be manually checked. The paperless digital machines open the door to potential election rigging that might not ever be detected.

Wisconsin: 2016 in review: Wisconsin’s presidential recount | WPR

Finalizing the outcome of the presidential election in Wisconsin proved difficult this year, with the state thrust into a national battle over recounting the results. Despite finishing fourth in the state’s presidential vote, Green Party nominee Jill Stein requested the recount Thanksgiving week. Stein campaign manager David Cobb said it was needed to give voters confidence in the outcome of the election – won by Republican President-elect Donald Trump. “We are not interested in trying to change the result of the election,” Cobb said. “We are interested in verifying the results of the election, and to ensure that there’s integrity.” The request came amid questions about possible Russian interference in the presidential election, and concerns that technology used to cast ballots on Election Day could have been “hacked” to change the outcome. While Stein’s campaign presented experts who explained how that could have happened, the campaign did not provide any actual evidence of outside interference.