Virginia: Democrats accuse rogue elections official of compromising voter privacy | The Washington Post

Election officials in Prince William County this week asked the Commonwealth’s attorney to investigate one of their own. They say Guy Anthony Guiffré, a member of the county electoral board, might have broken state and federal laws in his quest to determine whether someone improperly used technology to impersonate voters in last month’s election. At issue is a state rule that says a voter can apply for an absentee ballot online using an electronic signature instead of the old-fashioned way — with paper and pen. Guiffré, a Republican, says the system opens the door to fraud. To prove it, he recruited four friends — while the county’s registrar was away — to inspect 151 absentee ballot documents and registration records laden with Social Security numbers and other personal information. In doing so, Democrats say, he compromised the meticulous process used to handle ballots, usurped his authority and violated voter privacy.

Tanzania: Opposition Rejects Presidential Vote Results | VoA News

Main opposition candidate Edward Lowassa has rejected the results of Tanzania’s presidential election, citing alleged fraud. Lowassa told reporters Wednesday in Dar es Salaam that results from the opposition coalition’s tallying unit showed the opposition leading the vote count before police raided the unit Monday. The opposition Chadema party, part of the coalition, said police detained 40 of its volunteers who were tallying results. The police commissioner said the arrests were based on “violations of electoral procedures.” There was no immediate comment from the ruling CCM party.

Ukraine: Fraud Claims Delay Elections in Two Ukrainian Cities | The New York Times

Hopes that a local election could help shift tensions in an eastern Ukrainian city from simmering conflict to the relative safety of politics were thwarted Sunday when voters turned up to find no ballots. The election in Mariupol, a strategically important city, had been called off even as the rest of the country voted. Electoral authorities in the Ukrainian-controlled portion of the Donetsk region said the ballots were flawed and there was no time to print new ones. But critics quickly pointed out that opinion polls had shown that a political party affiliated with Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government had been poised to win the most votes.

Belarus: Election ‘neither free nor fair,’ says UN human rights expert | United Nations News Centre

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Belarus, Miklós Haraszti, today said that while the Presidential polls conducted in the country this past Sunday were not met with violence as in previous cases, no progress was made in serving the Belarusians’ right to free and fair election. “The election process was orchestrated, and the result was pre-ordained. It could not be otherwise, given the 20 years of continuous suppression of the rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association, which are the preconditions for any credible competition,” Mr. Haraszti said in a press statement. The Special Rapporteur noted that none of the international and local independent election monitors could verify the official claims of 86 per cent voter turnout or 84 per cent endorsement of the incumbent. “Such high scores have never been claimed in elections in Europe since the end of the Soviet Union,” Mr. Haraszti stressed. “The observers’ documentations highlighted that not even the four days of coerced participation of prison inmates, army conscripts, and public servants under the label of ‘early voting,’ can give up the stated numbers,” he added.

Guinea: Opposition alleges fraud, calls to cancel election | Associated Press

Guinea’s opposition candidates said Monday they will not recognize provisional results for the country’s presidential election, citing fraud — a move criticized by the government. “The Guinean opposition will not recognize the outcome of the poll. We call for outright cancellation of this election,” main opposition candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo said at a news conference alongside six other candidates who are running against President Alpha Conde. Diallo said there were flagrant violations of the laws, ballot boxes were stuffed and voters intimidated.

Guinea: Opposition leaders want election scrapped, citing fraud | Reuters

All seven opposition leaders who contested Guinea’s presidential election against incumbent Alpha Conde said on Monday the result should be annulled because of fraud. Their declaration is likely to stoke tension in the West African country, which has a history of political violence, including at the 2010 election that brought Conde to power. Conde, who rose to power in a military coup, is favored to win a second term, although the result from Sunday’s vote may be close enough to require a second round. Early results announced by radio stations so far showed Conde in the lead. The opposition candidates, including the main opposition leader, Cellou Dalein Diallo, told a news conference that there were numerous examples of fraud in the election. Diallo said voters registered this year in the city of Labe in central Guinea received no voting cards and only those who voted in 2010 could cast their ballots on Sunday. “The election was a masquerade which started yesterday and still continues today at the central (election) commission level. In these conditions, we again demand that the election be scrapped because we cannot recognize results issued through this process,” Diallo said.

Florida: Political operative charged in Miami-Dade elections case | Miami Herald

A political operative surrendered to face criminal charges Tuesday after prosecutors said he manipulated elections for community councils in Southwest Miami-Dade. David Alberto Carcache, 34, was charged with falsifying records, aiding and abetting an elections-code violation and false swearing. According to prosecutors, the unregistered lobbyist Carcache arranged for three candidates to run for community councils in Kendall and West Kendall, even though they did not live in the neighborhoods and were not eligible to run. He is alleged to have prepared bogus qualifying documents and maintained control over the candidates’ email accounts. He also submitted fraudulent campaign financial records, prosecutors said.

Russia: Russian Local Elections Draw Charges of Fraud | The New York Times

As Russians voted in local and regional elections on Sunday, democracy advocates in the only region where they were allowed to run accused the authorities of fraud and said the police had blockaded an apartment where opposition activists were tracking the vote. Although candidates from President Vladimir V. Putin’s United Russia Party were widely expected to win, Sunday’s vote was being viewed as a dress rehearsal for 2016 parliamentary elections and a test of voter turnout amid an economic downturn and Western sanctions. Results were expected on Monday. In the Kostroma region, about 200 miles northeast of Moscow, a coalition of opposition politicians, including Aleksei A. Navalny, fielded candidates under the banner of Parnas, or People’s Freedom Party. Boris Y. Nemtsov, a political reformer who was shot dead near the Kremlin in February, was the party’s co-founder. Kostroma’s electoral commission granted Parnas approval to run only last month, after several attempts to keep its candidates from running for the regional legislature.

Kansas: Kris Kobach seeks to block release of voting machine paper tapes | Topeka Capital-Journal

The top election official in Kansas has asked a Sedgwick County judge to block the release of voting machine tapes sought by a Wichita mathematician who is researching statistical anomalies favoring Republicans in counts coming from large precincts in the November 2014 general election. Secretary of State Kris Kobach argued the records sought by Wichita State University mathematician Beth Clarkson aren’t subject to the Kansas open records act and their disclosure is prohibited by Kansas statute. His response, which was faxed Friday to the Sedgwick County District Court, was made public Monday. Clarkson, chief statistician for the university’s National Institute for Aviation Research, filed the open records lawsuit as part of her personal quest to find the answer to an unexplained pattern that transcends elections and states. She wants the hard copies to check the error rate on electronic voting machines that were used in a voting station in Sedgwick County to establish a statistical model.

United Kingdom: Labour seeks legal advice over leadership election infiltration fears | The Guardian

Labour is seeking legal advice to ensure its leadership election is being conducted according to party rules, amid fears that the contest is being infiltrated by people who oppose the party. A spokesperson for acting leader Harriet Harman confirmed that the party had called in lawyers to ensure that the process would not be open to challenge, but denied that there were any plans to halt or suspend the process. Under new rules anyone can vote if they pay £3 to register as a supporter, which prompted concerns that the system was being gamed by people who support other parties. About 400,000 people have become eligible to vote in the contest since the general election, swelling the electorate to 600,000 A spokeswoman for Harman denied that legal advice had been sought as a result of the worries over “entryism” from the left and right. “The party’s focus is on making sure that the rules are fully complied with, as we said last week we have taken legal advice to make sure that the rules are being complied with and that all due diligence as possible was being done,” she said.

Australia: No voters prosecuted despite 7000-plus cases of suspected voting fraud in the 2013 federal election | Sydney Morning Herald

Not a single person will be prosecuted for multiple voting at the 2013 federal election – even those who admitted to casting more than one ballot paper. Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said he was “disturbed” that of the nearly 8000 cases of suspected voting fraud passed to the Australian Federal Police, not a single case has been forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Of the 7743 suspect cases referred to the AFP, just 65 were investigated and not one will progress to conviction. Mr Rogers told a Senate estimates committee that the file passed to the AFP included voters who had actually admitted to voting at more than one polling station and cases where the offence had been denied but there was supporting evidence that they had.

Burundi: Groups urge halt to voter registration, cite fraud | Reuters

Civil society groups in Burundi on Sunday urged the electoral commission to halt voter registration and said fake identification cards were being used, highlighting tensions before next year’s elections. Opposition parties in the African nation which emerged from ethnic-fuelled civil war in 2005 made a similar demand last month, citing irregularities in appointments for the registration process. The government has previously denied foul play, while the electoral commission said it was dealing with any complaints. The ruling coalition and its opponents are locked in a row over whether President Pierre Nkurunziza can run for office for a third term. He is widely expected to make another bid but has yet to say whether he will run in the June presidential vote.

United Kingdom: Scottish referendum vote-rigging claims spark calls for recount | The Guardian

By mid-afternoon on Monday the number of names on change.org had topped 87,000. “We the undersigned demand a re-vote of the Scottish referendum, counted by impartial international parties,” reads the petition, which goes on to cite “countless evidences of fraud” documented during Thursday’s poll on independence. At 38degrees.org.uk, a second petition had more than 62,000 signatories. “Investigate the vote counting procedures,” it demands. “Allow an independent re-count of all votes.” “I have [seen] videos that look like cheating and also [too] many yes voters for the result to be no,” wrote one signatory, Zoe M. “Why [were] there Yes votes photographed on a No table?” asked Maxine B. “Why [are] there videos of votes being tampered with or moved around while the counter is seen looking around making sure no one was watching?” “I’m a NO voter and even I think this is rigged,” said Zeus M.

Fiji: Election Hit With Fraud Accusations | Wall Street Journal

Fiji’s election has been thrown into confusion as a united opposition says it has evidence of fraud, contradicting international observers’ findings that the election result looked to be in line with what people wanted. Provisional results give Rear Adm. Voreqe Bainimarama’s party, Fiji First, a convincing lead with more than 60% of the vote, according to data released by the Fijian election authority early Thursday. The military strongman has ruled Fiji for eight years. The nearest opposition, the Social Democratic Liberal Party, known as Sodelpa, won just 27% of the vote, the election authority said. Final results aren’t expected for several days. Peter Reith, the Australian co-leader of the Multinational Observers Group, said that after talking to 92 observers from 15 countries, it had been concluded the elections were “on track to broadly represent the will of the Fijian voters.”

United Kingdom: Police probe allegations of electoral fraud in Glasgow | Herald Scotland

Officials at the referendum count in Glasgow are investigating 10 cases of suspected electoral fraud at polling stations. Glasgow City Council said police had been called earlier today. They said it related to possible cases of impersonation, where people pretend to be someone else, cast the vote, then the real person turned up to vote at a number of unidentified polling stations across the city. A council spokesman said: “The poll clerk had gone to score off the name and it appears the person had already voted. “We then contacted the police.who asked us to recover the ballot papers. We can do that quite easily because we know the number of the papers and which boxes. “It’s not likely to slow the count.”

Afghanistan: Invalidating fraud votes: Afghan election dispute enters crucial phase | The Express Tribune

Afghanistan’s 10-week election crisis entered a risky new stage on Monday when officials started invalidating fraudulent votes in a process likely to bring to a head the bitter dispute between the presidential candidates. The country has been in paralysis since the June 14 election to choose the successor to President Hamid Karzai, who will step down as US-led NATO troops prepare to end their 13-year war against Taliban insurgents. Karzai has insisted that the delayed inauguration ceremony must be held on September 2, imposing a tough deadline that has raised tensions between supporters of poll rivals Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah. The June vote was quickly mired in allegations of massive fraud, with Abdullah claiming that he had been denied victory after Ghani was declared ahead on preliminary results.

Afghanistan: Election Result Hinges on a Squabble-Prone Audit | New York Times

Seemingly endless squabbles are interrupted by full-scale shouting matches. Campaign aides mutter suspiciously about what foreign visitors might be up to. And ballot boxes are piling up, waiting to be cracked open and examined for signs of fraud. In two spartan, stifling warehouses on the edge of Kabul, hundreds of Afghans, Americans and Europeans are engaged in a last-ditch attempt to salvage an acceptably democratic result from an election dispute that has been tumbling toward a street fight, or worse. They are auditing all of the roughly eight million ballots cast in last month’s presidential runoff, trying to separate fraud from fact. But a week into the process, the audit has engendered little confidence, and is already desperately behind schedule.Only 4.5 percent of the roughly 22,000 ballot boxes had been examined by Wednesday. Each day has seemed to yield some new dispute or confusion that has put on the brakes. Does writing “insh’allah” — God willing — next to the name of a candidate on a ballot constitute a legitimate vote? Is it proper for campaign representatives to move between tables, urging colleagues to argue harder? And who was that tall, bearded foreigner with no badge?

Cook Islands: Cook Islands Democratic Party leader to challenge election result on corruption allegations | ABC

Cook Islands Democratic Party (DP) leader Wilkie Rasmussen says his party will be challenging the result of the national election, saying the process was mishandled. Official results returned Prime Minister Henry Puna’s Cook Islands Party (CIP) to government with a majority of 13 seats in the 24-member parliament. Mr Rasmussen, who lost his seat at the July 9 election, says questions have been raised about many aspects of the process, including concerns that the prime minister’s son accompanied ballot papers back from New Zealand. The initial count pointed toward a win for the DP but a huge surge of last minute declaration and postal votes turned the result, raising questions of corruption.

Indonesia: Election winner to be declared as supporters urged to ‘stay at home’ | The Guardian

Supporters of the two camps contesting Indonesia’s presidential election have been urged to stay at home and avoid conflict when the official result is declared. Thousands of police will secure the nation’s electoral commission on Tuesday, when it is expected to officially name Joko Widodo the winner of the hard-fought 9 July contest. With more than 130 million eligible votes counted, the wait for an official winner is finally over after Joko, Jakarta’s popular governor, and former general Prabowo Subianto, both claimed victory. The closeness of the result, and also the polarising nature of the candidates, has raised fears that unrest could follow the declaration. National police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said 3,200 officers would guard the electoral commission, but he was not expecting trouble. “People should just watch it on TV, stay at home,” he said.

Afghanistan: Presidential vote audit halted over which ballots to throw out | The Guardian

Afghanistan’s tenuous deal to resolve its presidential election crisis fell into jeopardy over the weekend when an ambitious audit was halted just days after it began. Election workers began looking for irregularities before agreeing rules about which ballots should be thrown out, but a dispute over invalidation led one audit team to walk out of the recount on Saturday afternoon, Afghan and foreign sources said. The team agreed to go back to work nearly 24 hours later, but still do not have a deal on what constitutes fraud. Progress has been slow for a country that has been in a dangerous political limbo for months. After three days of counting, the audit teams of election workers, international and Afghan observers and agents for the two presidential candidates, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, had only made their way through 435 boxes of ballot papers. With more than 22,000 boxes to be checked in the unprecedented recount of all votes cast, the teams must speed up dramatically or Afghanistan will not have a new president until 2015.

Editorials: After Afghanistan’s questionable election, a real chance for peace | The Washington Post

A week ago the political system fostered by the United States in Afghanistan was on the brink of collapse, with a new civil war being the likely result. After Afghan election authorities announced the preliminary results of a presidential election runoff, the apparent loser, Abdullah Abdullah, readied what looked to some like a coup, dispatching forces to Kabul police stations and lining up provincial governors to endorse his announcement of a government. Timely phone calls to Mr. Abdullah and rival Ashraf Ghani, first by Secretary of State John F. Kerry and then by President Obama, temporarily defused the crisis. Now Mr. Kerry has brokered an accord that appears to establish a clear plan for arbitrating the dispute over the election and establishing a stable government — a turnaround so remarkable that the U.N. representative in Kabul is calling it “not just a top-notch diplomatic achievement [but] close to a miracle.”

Afghanistan: Kerry in Afghanistan to Try to Broker Election-Audit Deal | Wall Street Journal

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Afghanistan on Friday to try to broker an election-audit deal between presidential candidates amid widespread allegations of voting fraud and as a deepening political crisis threatens to fragment the country along ethnic and regional lines. On Monday, Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission announced preliminary results following a June 14 presidential runoff between former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani. Mr. Ghani emerged as the apparent winner, with 56.4% of the vote, but Mr. Abdullah rejected the preliminary results, charging widespread fraud, and declared himself the victor. Followers of Mr. Abdullah have called for him to set up a “parallel government,” raising fears of upending the country’s democratic transition and a return to civil war.

Afghanistan: Candidate rejects election results | Associated Press

Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah defiantly told thousands of supporters Tuesday that he will declare victory in the country’s election, claiming massive fraud was responsible for preliminary results that put his rival in the lead. The United States warned both camps against trying to seize power, saying international financial and security support was at stake. The turmoil came as violence escalated around the country. A suicide bomber struck Afghan and foreign forces near a clinic in the eastern province of Parwan, killing at least 16 people, including four Czech soldiers. Abdullah said he received calls from President Obama and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and he was told that Kerry would be flying to the Afghan capital on Friday in a bid to help defuse the crisis. State Department officials accompanying Kerry in Beijing declined to comment on his travel plans.

Afghanistan: Presidential candidate Abdullah preemptively rejects election results | The Washington Post

Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has preemptively rejected the results of last month’s election, set to be officially released Monday, saying the country’s electoral commission was involved in widespread fraud that tarnished the legitimacy of the runoff vote. “Unless the clean votes are separated from those that are fraudulent, we will not accept the election results,” Abdullah said in a televised news conference Sunday night. “We will refer to the people” on how to respond to Monday’s announcement, he said. The stakes are high for a peaceful transfer of power, which would mark the first since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The fragile government here continues to battle a nationwide Taliban insurgency as foreign troops prepare to withdraw by the end of the year.

Libya: Vote results scrapped in 24 polling stations | News24

Libya’s electoral commission announced Sunday it was scrapping the results from 24 polling stations due to fraud in a parliamentary election contested at 1 600 stations in June. An investigation has been launched and those responsible for the alleged fraud will be put on trial, said commission chief Imed al-Sayeh. Sayeh was speaking at a news conference to announce preliminary results for the June 25 election, which was marred by a poor turnout, violence and the murder of a leading women’s rights activist.

Afghanistan: Was the Afghan Election Stolen? | Foreign Policy

Recent developments have diminished the trust of Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission IEC in the public mindset and further weakened the institution’s credibility and impartiality. Public trust in the IEC reached a new low following a press conference in which the IEC Chairman, Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani, announced that the voter turnout was above 7 million only two hours after polling had closed. The basis on which this figure was calculated is highly problematic as election staff from all thirty-four provinces could not have had enough time to report their data to the IEC. Moreover, the trouble with the IEC’s 7 million-plus figure was that it crossed the record voter turnout of 6.9 million in the first round of the presidential election. As the first round fielded nine presidential candidates and the provincial council elections, it was expected that the combination of the two would generate a higher voter turnout. Critics therefore called into question the IEC’s seven million-plus number as the second round of the presidential election did not have provincial council elections and only fielded two presidential candidates.

Afghanistan: Election result faces delay amid fraud allegations | Deutsche Welle

On Tuesday, Afghanistan’s electoral commission announced that it would likely delay the preliminary result of last month’s presidential runoff until the weekend at the earliest. The result was originally scheduled to be made public on Wednesday. “The announcement of preliminary results is likely to be delayed until Saturday,” election commissioner Sharifa Zurmati said. “Around 2,000 polling centers are to be recounted because of alleged fraud.” In June, Afghans defied Taliban violence to vote in a presidential runoff between former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and ex-World Bank official Ashraf Ghani. Ballots were cast at 6,000 polling stations across the country. The Independent Election Commission (IEC) reported that 99.7 percent of the ballots had been logged into its database. IEC chief Zia ul-Haq Amarkhail resigned his post last week after Abdullah’s campaign released a phone conversation in which Amarkhail allegedly called for ballot boxes to be stuffed. Amarkhail claimed the recording was fake but said he was stepping down so that Abdullah would end his boycott of the vote.

Afghanistan: Amid Claims of Fraud, Presidential Candidate Vows More Deadlock | New York Times

After a potential opening last week to ease Afghanistan’s political crisis, the presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah signaled on Sunday that more deadlock was ahead, promising again that he would not accept any decisions made by the country’s election commission after the panel rejected a list of his demands. “From today onward, we reject all the decisions and activities of the Independent Election Commission, which will not have any legal value anyway,” said Baryalai Arsalai, Mr. Abdullah’s campaign manager. “They have no intention to assess the fraudulent votes and separate the dirty votes from the clean votes.” In the two weeks since the presidential runoff vote, the election process has been shadowed by accusations of fraud and conspiracy, with the Abdullah campaign accusing a range of officials all the way to the presidential palace of rigging the vote against him. There have been dramatic protests flooding the streets of Kabul, and secretly captured phone calls that allegedly show election officials conspiring to rig the race.

Afghanistan: Thousands march on Afghan president’s palace to protest election | Reuters

Thousands of angry protesters marched on the Afghan president’s palace on Friday in support of candidate Abdullah Abdullah’s allegations that mass fraud had been committed during the presidential election by organizers and state officials. The run-off pitting the former Northern Alliance leader against ex-finance minister Ashraf Ghani on June 14 has fallen into deadlock over Abdullah’s decision to drop out last week. The impasse has revived longstanding ethnic tensions in Afghanistan because Abdullah’s base of support is with the Tajiks, the second largest ethnic group, while Ghani is Pashtun, the largest group. It also comes at a dangerous time, with the Taliban insurgency still raging and most NATO-led forces preparing to leave the country by the end of the year. Abdullah joined protesters aboard a small truck, driving alongside the crowd and waving a flag.

Afghanistan: Fraud allegations spark Afghan election dispute | AFP

Afghan election authorities on Monday strongly denied top officials were guilty of fraud after front-running presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah unleashed allegations that could threaten a smooth transition of power. Abdullah s fraud claims put him in direct conflict with the Independent Election Commission (IEC), raising fears of political instability as the bulk of US-led troops withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of the year. Abdullah demanded the sacking of Zia-ul-Haq Amarkhail, head of the IEC secretariat, over Amarkhail s alleged attempt to remove unused ballots from the IEC headquarters in Kabul on polling day. He also said the IEC s turnout figure of seven million voters in Saturday s run-off election was probably false. But IEC chairman Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani rejected the accusations against Amarkhail, and said the turnout figure was an early estimate that might be adjusted.