Philippines: Voting machine glitches disrupt Philippines poll | Andreo Calonzo and Philip J. Heijmans/Washington Post

Malfunctioning machines and hundreds of arrests for suspected vote buying disrupted the Philippines’ midterm elections on Monday. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is poised for a majority win in both houses of Congress, even with slowing economic growth and controversial policies including a deadly drug war. Over 18,000 government positions are up for grabs in the midterm elections, including half of the 24-seat Senate and about 300 posts in the House. Polls are set to close at 6pm and among the stumbles have been defects in 600 voting machines, causing long queues and delays in several areas, the Commission on Elections said.

Indonesia: Can e-voting solve Indonesia’s election woes? | The Jakarta Post

The idea of holding digital elections is picking up steam following reports that dozens of election workers died of reported extreme fatigue during and after organizing the nation’s first-ever concurrent elections, billed by many as “the world’s most complex”. While it is hard to determine if the April 17 general elections directly caused the deaths, a consensus has been reached that the current election system — in which five different paper-based elections are held on a single day — has to be changed. One of the proposed changes is for Indonesia to apply e-voting to make elections less complicated. The proposal, however, remains controversial, with lawmakers saying that even after so many election-related deaths, e-voting still seems like a distant dream. The controversy revolves around the question of whether Indonesia — an archipelago with a population of more than 250 million people — is ready for e-voting and whether the technology is the right solution to election problems. Lawmakers, election organizers, election observers and election engineers have given different answers.

India: How the world’s largest democracy casts its ballots | The Conversation

About 600 million Indian citizens are expected to cast their votes over a period of 39 days ending May 19, in the ongoing election for their country’s parliament. There are roughly 900 million eligible voters, and the country has typically seen about two-thirds of them turn out to polling places. I have been working on the security of electronic voting systems for more than 15 years, and, along with other colleagues, have been interested in understanding how a nation can tally that many votes cast over such a long period. India uses a domestically designed and manufactured electronic voting machine – as many as 4 million of them at 1 million polling places, at least some in extremely remote locations. The first version of the Indian electronic voting machine debuted in the state election in Kerala in 1982. Now they’re used in elections throughout the country, which happen on different days in different areas. When a voter arrives at the polling place, she presents a photo ID and the poll officer checks that she is on the electoral roll. When it’s her turn to vote, a polling official uses an electronic voting machine’s control unit to unlock its balloting unit, ready to accept her vote. The balloting unit has a very simple user interface: a series of buttons with candidate names and symbols. To vote, the voter simply presses the button next to the candidate of her choice. After each button press, a printer prints out the voter’s choice on paper and displays it to the voter for a few seconds, so the person may verify that the vote was recorded correctly. Then the paper is dropped into a locked storage box. The whole system runs on a battery, so it does not need to be plugged in.

United Kingdom: E-voting by touch-screen trialled in local elections | BBC

Voters in Gateshead are being invited to vote twice in the local elections – via the traditional ballot box and on a touch-screen computer. Only their ballot paper vote will count, with the e-voting just a trial. E-voting could eventually transform elections, doing away with the need for an election count. Several countries have experimented with such systems but security fears have held deployment back. Anyone wanting to take part has to record their vote via a touch-screen computer at the polling booth by entering a passcode issued to them, selecting a candidate and then receiving a paper receipt. All encrypted votes are published on the election website, where anyone will be able to look at the tally for each candidate. The system will flag up if any e-vote has been illegitimately modified. What made it different from previous systems was that it could be verified “end to end”, said the team at Warwick University who developed it, with funding from the European Research Council and Innovate UK.

Bulgaria: High court rejects appeal in voting machines tender | The Sofia Globe

Bulgaria’s Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) ruled on April 30 to deny the challenge lodged by one of losing bidders in the tender for the hire of 3000 voting machines for the country’s May 26 European Parliament elections. The plaintiff, which was disqualified by Bulgaria’s Central Election Commission (CEC) on the grounds that its offer did not meet the technical specifications set by the watchdog, argued that none of the three bidders could fully meet the technical requirements in the short time allocated for the tender. CEC spokesperson Alexander Andreev denied the allegations, saying that the electoral body met all the requirements set in the public procurement act and the technical requirements were met, as quoted by Bulgarian National Radio. Last week, CEC picked Ciela Norma as the winner in the tender. The company will have to deliver the voting machines by May 10, with software installation due to be completed by May 15, followed by 10 days for certification and audits. The voting machines would be then shipped to voting precincts on May 25.

India: Opposition parties take electronic voting machine woes to Election Commission | The Hindu

Opposition parties on Saturday approached the Election Commission alleging the display of party name only under the BJP symbol on EVMs during a mock poll in West Bengal’s Barrackpore constituency. However the poll panel has maintained that the same insignia was used for the party in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. A delegation comprising senior Congress leaders Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Ahmed Patel and Trinamool Congress’ Dinesh Trivedi and Derek O’Brien met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and demanded that either all such EVMs be removed from the remaining phases of elections or the names of other parties be added too. The EVMs display the party symbols, name of the candidates and their photographs. “On EVMs, the letters ‘BJP’ are visible under the party’s symbol. No other party’s name is there. Either remove all machines which mention the BJP clearly or all other parties’ name should be added in all such machines. Till then the use of these machines has to be stopped,” Mr. Singhvi told reporters after meeting the CEC.

Philippines: Voting machines to service more voters in 2019 polls | Rappler

Each vote-counting machine (VCM) will service more voters in the May 13 polls, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said Friday, April 26. The maximum number of voters that can use each VCM is now 1,000. In the 2016 elections, the maximum was 800 voters per VCM. In a DZMM interview, Comelec Spokesman James Jimenez explained that the number of registered voters has risen to 61 million this year from 54 million in 2016. Jimenez said the number of VCMs in the Comelec’s custody, however, stayed at 92,000. “Unfortunately hindi sumabay ang bilang ng makina natin. Ang bilang ng makina natin, ganoon pa rin. So ang ginawa ng Comelec, tinaasan ‘yung dami ng taong gagamit ng bawat makina,” Jimenez said. (Unfortunately, the number of machines was not able to keep up. The number of machines stayed the same. So the Comelec increased the number of people who will use each machine.)

Israel: Voting to stay secure: Israel a long way from electronic ballots | Ynet

Tears could be seen on the face of Orly Adas, the director of the Central Elections Committee, two weeks ago, when she began speaking at a meeting to discuss the final election results. The tears were an expression of the enormous tension and frustration felt by members of the committee during the period between Election Day and the release of the results. “We were under ferocious attack,” says Adas, referring to efforts by the New Right party to undermine the validity of election results that put them just 1,500 votes short of the threshold to enter the Knesset. That said, one must not cast aside claims made on social media by voters unaligned to a particular political party, who cite examples of distortions in the vote count. In the end, the question is whether there a way to improve the voting system and the count, both of which have barely been modified since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, despite the enormous technological improvements made in the past decades?

Bulgaria: Election Commission picks company to supply voting machines | The Sofia Globe

Bulgaria’s Central Election Commission (CEC) has picked a winner in the tender for the hire of 3000 voting machines for the country’s May 26 European Parliament elections. Three bidders submitted offers before the deadline, but CEC said that two were disqualified – one on the grounds that its bid was higher than the 7.5 million leva (about 3.8 million euro) cost ceiling set by CEC, the other because its offer did not meet the technical specifications set by the watchdog. The winner, Ciela Norma, said that it was prepared to meet all the deadlines even though it faced a slew of issues. A company official told public broadcaster Bulgarian National Television (BNT) that some voting machines were yet to be manufactured and shipped to Bulgaria and the software was not ready, given that CEC was yet to finalise its requirements on the printouts produced by the voting machines. Under the terms of CEC’s tender, the machines have to be delivered by May 10, with software installation due to be completed by May 15, followed by 10 days for certification and audits. The voting machines would be then shipped to voting precincts on May 25.

India: Electronic voting machines glitches mar voting in seven states | Times of India

Technical glitches in electronic voting machines (EVM) marred voting in seven of the 12 states that went to polls in the second phase of the staggered Lok Sabha elections. Faulty EVMs delayed polls in several constituencies in Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir, officials said. In Odisha, EVM glitches in many booths in Talsara Assembly constituency were reported while polling was delayed in six booths in Bonai Assembly constituency. Odisha saw both Lok Sabha as well as Assembly elections. Booths in Kendudihi, Bolangir and Kandhamal, G.Udayagiri and Baliguda in Odisha were also affected. In Uttar Pradesh, EVMs malfunctioned and disrupted polling in Mathura, Bulandshahr and Amroha. In Fatehpur Sikri, voters created a ruckus at booth no 201 and 54 where polling was on hold for more than 30 minutes due to EVM troubles. There were also reports of snags in the VVPAT (voter-verified paper audit trail)-EVMs in Nanded, Latur and Solapur in Maharashtra which either delayed polling or stopped it midway.

Russia: MPs cry foul in row over electronic voting | BBC

Russia’s lower house of parliament has passed a law allowing electronic voting in public elections – despite complaints that MPs’ own electronic voting system was being abused. Communist Aleksei Kurinny said fewer than half the MPs who backed the bill were actually present to vote. Earlier, his colleague Sergei Ivanov said some MPs were abusing the system by voting on behalf of colleagues. Deputy Speaker Alexander Zhukov ignored the complaints. Mr Ivanov, an MP for the Liberal Democratic Party, appeared to cast doubt on the reliability of any electronic voting, based on his colleagues’ behaviour in the State Duma. “I will not vote for this bill… There are 140 of you in this chamber, give or take one or two. If you are honest and decent people and don’t vote for your colleague who is not occupying their seat next to you, the bill won’t pass.” Media reports say Mr Zhukov tried to make a joke of the plea, calling on MPs not in the chamber to take their seats.

India: Opposition leaders questions reliability of electronic voting machines, demand 50 per cent VVPAT count | Business Standard

Opposition leaders including TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, Congress’ Abhishek Manu Singhvi and AAP’s national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, on Sunday questioned the reliability of the electronic voting machines (EVMS) and demanded a mandatory paper trail count in at least 50 per cent of the Assembly constituencies in all Lok Sabha seats. At a joint press conference, Singhvi said,”We will campaign in the whole country and outline that repeatedly questions are being raised on elections and the Election Commission is not paying due attention to it. We have heard many issues in these elections such as EVM button giving vote to a different candidate and lakhs of voters being deleted online. Fifteen state parties and six national parties are supporting this campaign. We believe that counting of five VVPATs per Assembly constituency is not good enough. We want that check of 50 per cent of VVPATs must be made mandatory in all constituencies.” “There were arguments raised about logistics and it was stated that VVPAT counting may take days. However, we believe that if the number of teams of poll officials is increased it can be done in lesser time. Between logistics and credibility, we must choose the latter. We believe that paper trail is indispensible,” he said.

Malta: No more manual counting: is Malta justified in joining the voting future? | Malta Today

Maltese elections are unique in the way hundreds of party activists and canvassers congregate inside the national counting hall to monitor the live count of votes, collecting tallies of the data as it is read out to calculate samples, and hit the Perspex separator wall hard when a vote is incorrectly counted. The process, which usually takes over three days to fully complete, usually delivers a first-count vote tally within 12 hours, but sampling of votes delivers a clear picture of who the winner is within the first hour of sorting. In November of last year, the vote counting hall in Naxxar was transformed to include a fully-functioning electronic system from Idox, a Scottish software company. Their technology will be used for the European Parliament and local council elections in May this year, less than two months from now. E-counting will be used in a bid to speed up the process and to minimise human error. Voting will still be a manual endeavour via a ballot paper.

Pakistan: New electronic ballot machine launched | The Express Tribune

With the use of electronic and biometric voting machines dismissed by the apex electoral body ahead of last year’s general elections on account of ‘technical difficulties’, another private company has sought to reignite the debate by introducing its prototype. The new electronic voting machine (EVM), developed by ElectronBallot, was unveiled in the federal capital on Monday. Rizwan Kamran, the chief executive officer of the company, introduced the machine as an alternative to conventional voting (paper ballot). He claimed that the machine can deliver final, verified and official results on the night of an election. Moreover, he said that the machine was capable of delivering results to a centralised location. “Digital elections do not mean they are safe,” he warned, adding that they could employ mathematical tools to make the electronic voting process more transparent.

India: Electronic Voting Machine and its history with India: Controversy over EVMs malfunctioning, rigging allegations are not new | Firstpost

Controversy is brewing over an Indian cyber expert’s claim that EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) were hacked in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections which the BJP had won by a landslide margin. Reacting strongly to the allegations, the Election Commission rejected the claims and insisted that the EVMs were foolproof and that it was ‘wary of becoming a party to this motivated slugfest’. Addressing a press conference in London via Skype, the individual, identified as Syed Shuja, said he fled India in 2014 because he felt threatened in the country after the killing of some of his team members. Although he appeared on screen through Skype, his face was masked. Shuja claimed that he is seeking political asylum in the US. Shuja, however, provided no proof to back up his claim. Shuja also alleged that other than the BJP, the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, AAP and Congress too were involved in the rigging of the EVMs. EVMs can record a maximum of 3,840 votes and can cater to a maximum of 64 candidates. There are 543 Lok Sabha constituencies and an equivalent number of seats in the Lower House of Parliament. To win a simple majority more than 272 seats are therefore needed. BJP won 51.9 percent of all seats in 2014 elections. In the 2014 election, 66.4 percent out of the total electorate of 834,101,479 voted.

New Jersey: Progress Seen in Test of Paper-Trail voting Machines that Allow Audit of Results | NJ Spotlight

Review of midterm election offers assurance that electronic vote counts are reliable, but lawmakers show limited interest in deploying the technology statewide. New Jersey’s first pilot tests of voting machines that provide a way to verify results proved successful in the last election, and now some officials are looking forward to expanding testing later. Typically, elections with state Assembly seats topping the ticket — like this coming fall — have low turnouts and so make this an ideal time to roll out new machines. These machines include a paper ballot alongside an electronic screen which both allows voters to check that their choices were properly marked and keeps a paper trail for the elections board. Fewer people casting ballots should help reduce the wait some may experience as voters who may be confused by the new technology take more time on the machine.

Congo: A shambolic, unfair election, two years late – Who will win the count? | The Economist

Standing on a chair in a shabby classroom, a technician peels the plastic off the end of a cable with his teeth and attaches it to some exposed wires that dangle around a light bulb. “Soon the machine will work again,” he says cheerfully to a queue of voters, most of whom have waited for more than five hours. Across Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, hundreds of voting machines did not work on polling day, December 30th. The electronic tablets, nicknamed machines à voler (stealing machines), did little to redeem their dodgy reputation. A lot of voters, unfamiliar with touchscreen technology, struggled to use them. Officials from the electoral commission, widely believed to be in President Joseph Kabila’s pocket, offered unsolicited help. Observers feared they were nudging people to vote for the president’s chosen successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary.

Georgia: Will Georgia Double Down on Non-Transparent, Vulnerable Election Machines? | WhoWhatWhy

How could Georgia make its current voting system worse? Officials seem to have found a way. Even before the 2018 midterm election, the Peach State had achieved notoriety based on, among other things, its use of hackable paperless voting machines. Paperless voting machines are considered an especially attractive target for hackers and corrupt insiders because they provide no independent paper record of voter intent that can be used to determine whether electronic tallies are legitimate. Thus, Georgia is one of just a handful of states that still exclusively use such paperless machines. The good news is that Georgia, which was the first state in the country to deploy paperless machines statewide, has finally decided to replace these machines. But Georgia’s newly elected Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger (R), hopes to replace them not with hand-marked paper ballots and scanners (as virtually all independent cybersecurity election experts recommend), but rather with touchscreen ballot-marking devices, a prime example of which is the ExpressVote system from Election Systems & Software, LLC (ES&S). The ExpressVote is the specific system that Governor-elect Brian Kemp (R) began promoting last year. ES&S is Georgia’s current vendor.

Bangladesh: In A First, Electronic Voting Machines For Bangladesh General Elections | NDTV

Bangladesh made use of electronic voting machines for the first time in a general election, though only on a limited scale, a move which received mixed responses from the voters amid reports of glitches in some booths.
Out of the 299 parliamentary constituencies that went to polls, six saw the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs), a regular feature in India since decades. Voting for the 11th national election began with the machines being used in the six seats selected through lottery. These are: Dhaka-6, Dhaka-13, Chattogram-9, Rangpur-3, Khulna-2 and Satkhira-2. The six seats comprises over 2.1 million voters. The results from these six seats could be announced within hours after the voting ends, Bangladeshi media reported.

India: Elections in the world’s largest democracy have serious technology issues | Quartz

Technology seems to be tripping up the electoral process in the world’s largest democracy with disturbing frequency. Of late, two key issues have threatened the right to franchise of many of India’s 800 million voters. One is a software that seems to be marking genuine voters’ names for deletion from the electoral rolls. The other is electronic voting machines (EVMs), which some believe are vulnerable to tampering. While complaints relating to these issues have done the rounds for years, the latest bout, involving a large number of such grievances, was sparked during the recent elections to five Indian state legislative assemblies. The most egregious complaints occurred in the south-central state of Telangana. On polling day (Dec.07) in the state, many voters were shocked to find their names missing from the electoral rolls. This followed the election commission of India’s (ECI) admission weeks before that up to 2.2 million names had been deleted by its software for being supposed duplicates.Some people, including international badminton ace Jwala Gutta, tweeted #whereismyvote in frustration.

Congo: Fire destroys thousands of Congo voting machines in capital | Associated Press

An early-morning fire in Congo’s capital destroyed thousands of voting machines just 10 days before the presidential election, officials said Thursday, saying the blaze appeared to be criminal in nature but vowing that it would not disrupt the vote. Congo’s first use of voting machines on Dec. 23, a rarity in Africa, has caused concerns among the opposition, diplomats and experts about possible manipulation in favor of President Joseph Kabila’s preferred successor. Kabila is stepping aside after taking power in 2001. The electoral commission said the fire broke out at a warehouse in Kinshasa, adding that it was too early to declare the cause or the extent of the damage.

Tennessee: Report: Voting paper trail still needed in Tennessee | Associated Press

A state government group is renewing its call for Tennessee to keep a paper trail of voters’ ballots roughly 10 years after coming out with a similar recommendation that resulted in little change.
Just 14 of the state’s 95 counties produce some sort of a paper record for independent recounts and audits, according to the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. The group first urged changes to the state’s election system in 2007, when it found only two counties had such requirements. All the other counties use direct recording electronic voting machines with touch screens that do not produce a paper record that can be recounted and audited independent of the voting machine’s software. “Although ensuring that elections are safe and secure is not a new challenge, as technology and election systems have evolved, so has the risk to security,” the report reads. “The 2016 election cycle brought the potential vulnerabilities of electronic election infrastructure to the attention of national, state, and local officials, the media, and the general public.” Tennessee is one of 14 states with no statutory requirement of a paper record of all votes.

Texas: Hughes’ committee election report calls for paper ballot trail, lays ground for bills in 2019 Legislature | Longview News-Journal

A 17-page report issued by a Texas Senate panel led by East Texas state Sen. Bryan Hughes gives a preview of election security bills that lawmakers will take up when they convene in Austin at the new year. Released to the public Wednesday, the report by the Senate Select Committee on Election Security does not include recommendations on combating mail ballot fraud. That topic took up much of the seven-member, bipartisan panel’s only meeting Feb. 22. The report devotes much of its attention to the cybersecurity of voting systems in Texas and recommends that all electronic voting machines in the state produce a paper ballot voters can inspect before casting their ballots.

Malta: PN’s trust in electronic counting ‘seriously decreased’ after changes without Commission’s consent | The Malta Independent

The Partit Nazzjonalista’s trust level in the new electronic vote counting system has “seriously decreased” after changes were made to the system by the company responsible for it without informing the Electoral Commission or the political party delegates. Speaking to this newsroom after a report published in The Malta Independent, PN Secretary Clyde Puli said that the PN had voted in favour of this system in parliament as it removes tension by reducing long waiting times; however after news of the non-consensual changes emerged following the system’s second mock test on Saturday, Puli said that their trust level in the system has “seriously decreased” and that they were “very concerned”. The PN demanded reassurances about what safeguards will be in place to ensure that no one can just change the system at will before they can re-affirm their status in favour of this system. The situation, Puli said, “is dangerous for democracy”.

Malta: New electronic vote counting system modified without Electoral Commission’s consent | The Malta Independent

Sources who were in the counting hall where the new electronic vote counting system was being tested yesterday expressed serious concerns over the way the system had been modified between the first and second mock test. It transpires that the company responsible for operating the system had made amendments to it without informing the Electoral Commission or the political parties’ delegates. Such changes made without their consent could be potentially dangerous, sources claim. During the first mock test of the new system in November, a number of concerns had been flagged, especially on the number of ballot sheets that the system failed to recognise and were subsequently passed on to a human adjudicator. This amounted to approximately 40 per cent of the votes.

Congo: As Congo rolls towards election, voting machines arrive | Infosurhoy

A deadly Ebola outbreak grows. Rebels kill civilians in the streets. And yet the arrival of voting machines in this troubled corner of Congo has some especially worried as a long-delayed presidential election promises further upheaval. The machines now arriving by the thousands in this Central African nation are of such concern that the U.N. Security Council has come calling, the United States has issued warnings and opposition supporters on Friday plan a national protest. As Congo faces what could be its first peaceful, democratic transfer of power, fears are high that the more than 100,000 voting machines will be ripe for manipulation. They also could pose a technical nightmare in a sprawling nation of more than 40 million voters where infrastructure is dodgy – just 9 percent of Congo has electricity – and dozens of rebel groups are active. … Now attention turns to the voting machines, made by South Korean company Miru Systems, that security researchers say are vulnerable to rigging and print codes that include ballot-specific information that could strip away voters’ anonymity. The researchers include experts from Argentina, which rejected the company’s machines after learning of the issues.

National: Midterm Voting Exposes Growing Problem of Aging Machines | Associated Press

Election experts have long warned about the nation’s aging fleet of voting equipment. This week’s elections underscored just how badly upgrades are needed. Across the country, reports poured in Tuesday amid heavy voter turnout of equipment failing or malfunctioning, triggering frustration among voters and long lines at polling places. Scanners used to record ballots broke down in New York City. Voting machines stalled or stopped working in Detroit. Electronic poll books used to check in voters failed in Georgia. Machines failed to read ballots in Wake County, North Carolina, as officials blamed humidity and lengthy ballots. Those problems followed a busy early voting period that revealed other concerns, including machines that altered voters’ choices in Texas, North Carolina and Georgia.

Congo: Thousands rally against voting machines ahead of election | East Africa Monitor

Thousands of opposition supporters in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Friday rallied against the use of voting machines in the country’s upcoming election. In a rare move, President Joseph Kabila’s government authorised the protest although security forces were deployed throughout the capital Kinshasa and various other cities. However, unlike previous protests, which have ended in deadly violence, Friday’s demonstration passed without incident. Tension ahead of the DRC’s long-awaited presidential election is high, following the electoral commission’s decision to bar former warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba and regional baron Moise Katumbi from running. Bemba is among the opposition politicians calling upon supporters to rally against what he described as “the greatest electoral fraud ever with electronic machines that have not been tested anywhere in the world.”

Nigeria: ‘How Virtual Polling Units May Mar 2019 Elections’ | allAfrica.com

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was warned yesterday that the credibility of its elections in 2019 may be threatened by electronic manipulation. It was further told that the manipulation was being planned by some persons within its ranks. The alarm was raised by the convener of Concerned Nigerians, Deji Adeyanju, at a press briefing in Abuja. Reliable sources in INEC revealed that the commission’s e-collation portal has been tampered with, Adeyanju said, warning that this could lead to the creation of virtual polling units. According to him, while e-collation remains the most potent way to end vote rigging, a faulty system means anyone could enter results from any location at anytime or date because the portal allegedly no longer shows location, time and date of collation.