Russia: Moscow court confirms election defeat for Navalny | Associated Press

A Moscow courthouse on Friday upheld the results of mayoral elections in which the Kremlin-backed incumbent narrowly avoided a run-off with opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Russian news outlets reported. The judge rejected Navalny’s claims that the campaign was marked by abuse of government finances and selected voter fraud, ruling that there were no grounds for a recount. Navalny’s success in the elections proved an embarrassment to his Kremlin-backed opponent, incumbent Sergei Sobyanin. Sobyanin got 51 percent of the vote, just avoiding the 50 percent cut-off that would have forced him into a second round against Navalny. Independent election monitor Golos also criticized the election result, saying that there had been no evidence of widespread vote-rigging but that isolated violations could have tipped the close election. Also Friday, another court that Navalny’s appeals trial will begin on Oct. 9. Navalny was sentenced in July to five years in prison for embezzlement in a case that he and his supporters describe as legally dubious and a punishment for his exposure of high-level corruption.

Michigan: Cost of recounts soars in legislation passed by Michigan House | Detroit Free Press

Asking for a recount of an election could get a whole lot more expensive under a bill passed by the state House of Representatives on Thursday. Currently, a candidate requesting a recount must pay $10 per precinct to get a recount underway. Under the bill passed Thursday on a 95-9 vote, that amount would increase to $25 per precinct. And for candidates who lost by more than 50 votes, it would cost them $125 per precinct if they asked for a recount. The bill was drafted long before the election mess in Detroit, where the votes have been counted multiple times by city, county and state officials.

Michigan: Canvassers in Detroit mayoral recount send some ballots to prosecutor, judge | Detroit Free Press

Six weeks after Detroiters cast their votes for mayor, City Council and clerk, ballots are still being examined, counted and analyzed as the Wayne County Board of Canvassers looks into allegations of fraud. The board spent Tuesday poring through ballots at Cobo Center and made some interesting discoveries. Among them: Some absentee ballots in which Mike Duggan’s name had been typed onto the ballot, some absentee ballots were cast using pencil, and some absentee ballots in which corrective fluid was used. The board voted to send the ballots that had Duggan’s name typed in to the Wayne County prosecutor and the chief judge at the Wayne County Circuit Court for investigation.

Michigan: Elections workers slog through Detroit mayoral recount | Detroit Free Press

Wayne County elections workers are expected to begin their eighth day recounting ballots from disputed Detroit elections this morning, and little information is being made available on how much longer the recount will take — or how much it is costing. County officials said Monday that about 80% of the ballots have been counted. Paperwork then has to be completed after the count. Delphine Oden, Wayne County’s director of elections, declined to say Monday when she expected the recount to end. The recount was approved by the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, which is looking into allegations of fraud detailed in a petition filed by former mayoral candidate Tom Barrow. Barrow’s allegations include, among other things, that the number of applications for absentee ballots was lower than the number of absentee votes cast, and that similar handwriting appears on several ballots cast for former Detroit Medical Center CEO Mike Duggan, who will face Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon in November’s general election. Carol Larkin, chair of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, said the overall cost for the recount appears headed closer to $100,000 than the $500,000 price tag Barrow has suggested. “We won’t know the total until it’s done,” she said. “It is going to get costly, though.”

Michigan: Board of Canvassers to hire handwriting expert for review of Detroit primary recount | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

The Wayne County Board of Canvassers decided Saturday to hire a handwriting expert to review ballots from Detroit’s August primary election. The decision came as the board met at Cobo Center to consider more than 170 challenges filed so far in the latest recount of the primary. The top vote-getters in the mayor’s race, as certified by the state — former Detroit Medical Center CEO Mike Duggan and Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon — will face each other in the November general election. Despite the decision to hire a handwriting expert, several challengers criticized the 19 samples that would be reviewed as too small to be representative.

Michigan: Detroit mayoral ballot recount meets challenges right off the bat | Detroit Free Press

Moments after the recount of Detroit’s mayoral race ballots began Tuesday, the first hand went up from a challenger citing an issue. Other hands were soon to follow. So went the first day of recounting ballots after former mayoral candidate Tom Barrow and others alleged fraud in the elections process in several city races. “This is an investigation,” Barrow said Tuesday at Cobo Center, where the recount was being conducted. “We’re seeing thousands of ballots in the same handwriting. All for the write-in. All for (mayoral candidate) Mike Duggan. These are clearly fraudulent ballots — and we’re just getting started.” Tuesday morning, Wayne County Director of Elections Delphine Oden told observers and poll workers that once ballots were taken from ballot boxes, county workers assembled for the recount would begin by holding some ballots faceup, giving challengers from the various campaigns time to examine them, before putting them facedown and moving through the votes.

New York: NYC mayoral primary may go to Round Two | USAToday

The Democratic mayoral primary is still too close to call even though Bill de Blasio leads by more than 90,000 votes. That’s because de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, must clear 40% of the vote to avoid a primary runoff with Bill Thompson, former city comptroller and second-place finisher. De Blasio’s vote totals are hovering around the 40% mark, but Thompson declined to concede, and the city’s Board of Elections has yet to count more than 19,000 absentee ballots. If de Blasio dips below 40%, he and Thompson will compete in a runoff election Oct. 1. Nearly 650,000 votes were cast in the race Tuesday.

Maldives: Gasim seeks recount of presidential poll votes | Haveeru

Jumhoory Party (JP) presidential candidate Gasim Ibrahim who narrowly missed out a place in the second round of the presidential elections held Saturday said that he has asked elections commission for a vote recount. Speaking during a rally on Wednesday, Gasim reiterated that there were major doubts surrounding the results of the first round. According to Gasim, issues such as ballots being cast in the names of deceased people and vote rigging had been noted during the first round. In light of such issues, JP had requested for a recount in the presence of relevant interlocutors, he added.

Michigan: Recount starts in Detroit primary races | The Detroit News

The Wayne County Board of Canvassers Tuesday began a recount of Detroit’s Aug. 6 primary election that was certified a week ago. A total of eight recount petitions were filed and accepted, including a request by Tom Barrow who said he seeks to uncover fraud in the effort. Barrow has raised a number of issues, including challengers who claim to have seen similar handwriting on a number of ballots. The Wayne County Clerk’s Office is not sure how long the recount will take, but by law it must be finished within the next 20 days, spokeswoman Jina Sawani said Tuesday. Barrow spokesman Geoffrey Garfield said things are “going on fine” so far, but he is not ready to say whether fraud will be discovered. In November 2009, Barrow requested a recount after losing to Mayor Dave Bing 58 percent to 42 percent and claimed voter fraud. The recount resulted in a change of few votes, but 60,000 regular and absentee ballots could not be recounted because of irregularities.

Russia: Navalny demands recount in Moscow mayoral race | Associated Press

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny demanded a recount Monday in Moscow’s mayoral election after official results showed that the Kremlin-backed incumbent barely escaped facing him in a runoff. Russia’s most respected monitoring group also questioned the accuracy of the vote. The Moscow Election Commission said Monday that former Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Sobyanin won just over 51 percent of the vote while Navalny garnered 27 percent in second place, a strong result for a Russian opposition leader. If Sobyanin, 55, had won less than 50 percent, he would have faced a runoff with the charismatic 37-year-old Navalny, who has risen to wide prominence in the past few years with his anti-corruption campaign. “We do not recognize these elections,” Navalny told reporters. “Sobyanin can’t consider himself the mayor of all Muscovites, he can’t consider himself a lawfully elected mayor unless he agrees to our demands and allows a recount of the vote.”

Michigan: Wayne County canvassers vote to recount Detroit mayoral ballots | Detroit Free Press

It may be hard to believe but the primary election in Detroit still is not settled. And today makes exactly one month since voters cast ballots for mayor, city council and city clerk. The Wayne County Board of Canvassers voted Thursday to recount ballots from Detroit’s August primary, based on a petition from former mayoral candidate Tom Barrow, who alleged fraud in the election process. It will be the fourth time ballots from Detroit’s mayoral race will be counted. Detroit elections workers counted the ballots initially, then workers from the Wayne County Elections Division verified the counts to try and certify the results. But the certification came from the Board of State Canvassers after the Wayne County board found issues they said called for state intervention.

Michigan: State To Recount Write-In Votes In Detroit Mayoral Primary | CBS

Members of the State Board of Canvassers voted 4-0 Tuesday to re-tally Detroit’s mayoral primary results, which means they’ll soon be rolling up their sleeves to recalculate what could become one of the most pivotal elections in Detroit history. The issue erupted after the Detroit city clerk’s office posted results that showed write-in candidate Mike Duggan handily defeating Benny Napoleon. But when the votes went to Wayne County for certification, the county board found Detroit workers had not used hashmarks to represent every five votes counted — so they tossed out 18,000 write-in ballots where hashmarks weren’t used in their tabulation. Without the 18,000 votes, Napoleon became the unofficial victor. Then the state stepped in and said those votes couldn’t be tossed out — so now Michigan is going to look at the ballots again. The recalculation is expected to last a few days.

Michigan: Vote counting in Detroit mayoral primary sets off another fight | The Detroit News

To paraphrase a line from HBO’s vote-debacle drama “Recount”: There’s a problem with the numbers in Detroit. A meeting of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers this week should have been as tedious as 10 pages of computer code. Instead, it became a highly publicized test of democracy — or competence — when the county clerk’s office tried to push through a near-50 percent change in the write-in vote total. The clerk’s office urged the canvassers to discard 18,000 write-in ballots: The reason given? Poll workers had used numerals rather than tally marks and hash tags on the official count. That discrepancy was not illegal, according to the state election director, Chris Thomas. But the county clerk urged the board of canvassers to toss the questionably counted ballots, turning them into non-votes. Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey, whose results were being challenged, demurred. “A citizen’s vote is the cornerstone of democracy, and people should be able to put their faith in their ballot,” she said. Those 18,000 ballots, all write-ins, were presumably cast for Mike Duggan. A turnabout in the total would eliminate his lead, making Benny Napoleon the primary winner.

US Virgin Islands: Elections board ends group’s review of ballots | Virgin Islands Daily News

At its monthly meeting Thursday, the St. Thomas-St. John District Board of Elections voted to bar a group of residents from reviewing tally sheets and paper ballots from the last election. The board took the action on the basis that the group – which has alleged irregularities and fraud in the Elections System – is conducting a full-fledged recount. At the meeting, board member Harry Daniel made a motion to “discontinue access for the purpose of counting the ballots.” Board Chairman Arturo Watlington Jr. and board members Lawrence Boschulte and Alecia Wells voted along with Daniels in favor of the motion. Board members Claudette Georges and Wilma Marsh-Monsanto, who herself is part of the group reviewing the documents, voted against the motion. Board member Lydia Hendricks was not present for the vote.

Mexico: Conservatives keep key state governorship after recount | AFP

Mexico’s conservative opposition retained the governor’s seat in Baja California after the ruling party candidate conceded defeat Saturday following a recount in the politically crucial state. The state bordering the United States was the biggest prize in the July 7 regional elections in 14 Mexican states, with analysts saying its result could sink or save a multi-party reform pact. The candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Fernando Castro Trenti, threw in the towel as the recount gave an edge to National Action Party (PAN) rival Francisco “Kiko” Vega.

Mexico: Recount begins in key state election | GlobalPost

Authorities began Wednesday to recount ballots in a key gubernatorial election in the Mexican state of Baja California after preliminary results were scrapped due to a technical glitch. The result of the election in the state, which borders the United States, could have an impact on national politics, with analysts saying that a defeat for the conservative National Action Party (PAN) may threaten a multi-party reform pact. Helga Casanova, spokeswoman for the Baja California Electoral Institute, told AFP that the recount may last until Sunday but that it could be completed before then.

Mexico: Some in Mexico smell a rat as vote count halted in Baja California | Los Angeles Times

The election for the prized post of governor of Baja California was thrown into disarray Monday, with both major candidates claiming victory and a preliminary vote count abruptly halted because of what authorities called a math error. The National Action Party, which has held the job since 1989, when it became the first party to defeat the Institutional Revolutionary Party in an election, was ahead by a few percentage points after polls closed Sunday night, officials said. But then, with about 97% of preliminary results tallied in a quick count by a private contractor, officials suddenly halted the count and said results would not be available until Wednesday. The officials cited a problem with algorithms. Some Mexicans smelled a rat. They recalled the notorious presidential election of 1988, when leftist candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas appeared to be defeating Carlos Salinas de Gortari of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. At a certain point, the system conducting the ballot count had what authorities at the time claimed to be a mechanical failure. When the computers came back up, Salinas was declared the victor.

New York: NYC Board Of Elections Finds Nearly 1,600 Brooklyn Ballots Never Counted In Nov. 2012 | New York Daily News

The city Board of Elections just re-certified the results of the race — including an additional 1,579 ballots finally counted last week. Exactly 238 days elapsed between the Nov. 6 election and the beleaguered Board’s Tuesday sign-off on the latest update — raising serious questions about how quickly and reliably the agency can make a call in the upcoming Sept. 10 primary. “There’s three weeks between the primary and the runoff election, and the Board is going to have to perform at a optimal level,” said Alex Camarda, public policy director for the Citizens Union good-government group. “The fact that they’re discovering these uncounted votes [only now] casts doubt on their ability to do that,” he said. “It diminishes public confidence in the integrity of the election system.” Under a bill awaiting Gov. Cuomo’s signature, the Board could haul out its old lever voting machines for the primary and a widely anticipated subsequent runoff that would be triggered if no candidate captures 40% of the vote.

National: White House says online election recount petition facts faulty | UPI.com

The White House Wednesday rejected an online petition requesting a 2012 presidential vote recount, saying the election was “decided fairly and democratically.” The Obama administration, which officially responds to any petition on its “We the People” website that garners at least 100,000 signatures, said in a statement that while those who signed the petition might be disappointed by the election’s outcome — in which Obama won a second term by defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney — “this election was decided fairly and democratically, and there’s absolutely no evidence to suggest otherwise.” The administration shot down the petition’s contention that Ohio’s Wood County has 98,213 eligible voters but had 106,258 votes cast — pointing out that the Ohio secretary of state’s records show the county had 108,014 registered voters at election time and only 64,342 actually voted.

Kenya: Kalembe Wins Kibwezi Petition Vote Recount | allAfrica.com

Kibwezi West MP Patrick Musimba yesterday lost in the recount of votes cast in the March 4 general election. The High Court ordered for the recount that declared the petitioner, Kalembe Ndile, to have beat Musimba by 118 votes. Justice David Majanja sitting in Machakos said he has a choice of declaring Ndile as the Kibwezi west MP or order for a by-election. The recount conducted last week under the supervision of the Deputy Registrar of the High Court, Jane Makungu, revealed that Kalembe garnered 16,891 votes against Musimba’s 16,773. The recount was completed last Friday and the results forwarded to Majanja on Monday before he ordered the press not to publish them after Musimba filed an application challenging the results.

Philippines: Will manual recount show more votes than voters? | The Philippine Star

Comelec chief Sixto Brillantes will never allow a manual recount of even only the automated senatorial voting. He will do all to block it, from stunning his critics with the cost (“Pay up P200 million first”) to having presidential spokesmen speak for him (“We preferred to sweep the entire slate but we didn’t”). A manual recount is forbidden. For, it not only will confirm the statistically dubious 60-30-10 percent outcomes of winners and losers in all regions. It could also expose that there were more votes than voters. The discrepancy of votes and voters is the reason why both the precinct counting and the official canvassing were never completed. No politician is questioning for fear perhaps of the powerful Comelec, critics say. To recall, Brillantes on Election Day, May 13, declared a low 65-percent voter turnout, 33.8 million of the 52 million registered voters. It was only a midterm balloting, he said. The next day the seven Comelec commissioners convened as the national board of canvassers. Sluggishly they started with the advanced overseas votes, since undisclosed kinks were delaying the transmissions of local results to the central server. Then suddenly on Thursday, May 16th, they proclaimed six senators, and on Friday the 17th three more.

Venezuela: White House dodges request urging Venezuelan government to hold recount of April election

Just like he did with the petition to deport CNN host Piers Morgan in December, President Obama has dodged calls by Americans to urge the South American country of Venezuela to hold a recount on its April 14 election. The petition, which was posted on the Administration’s “We the People” page on April 15, asks the Administration to refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the new Venezuelan government until there is a recount of the previous day’s vote. The election was held just a month after longtime leader Hugo Chavez passed away from cancer.

Wisconsin: Recount spurs voting reforms | Journal Times

Weekend absentee voting would end and voter identification requirements would return under a sweeping new election law package partially inspired by issues in Racine. The bill from Greendale Republican Rep. Jeff Stone covers a wide swath of election-related territory, including numerous procedural changes for how electoral recounts are run. Those changes are partially the product of last summer’s recall recount in Racine, where tensions ran high and allegations of election fraud repeatedly surfaced, according to Stone’s office. Speaker of the Assembly Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said his office helped shape the final bill, bringing together what he called “a bunch of different ideas regarding elections to make them hopefully easier and more fair.” The result is the wide-ranging proposal planned for committee debate Tuesday.

Malta: AG to be involved in votes recount cases | Times of Malta

A court this morning decided that the Attorney General should be a party in a case instituted by the Nationalist Party where it demanded a recount of the votes cast in the eighth and thirteen districts in the general election. Justice Jacqueline Padovani said the Attorney General should be a party in the case to safeguard state interests. The PN had argued that the Attorney General should not be involved while the Electoral Commission requested that the AG be called into the proceedings.

New York: Tkaczyk writes bills based on her recount | Times Union

Exasperated by a 73-day recount that forced her to miss a week of voting, Sen. Cecilia Tkaczyk is proposing changes to election law that would prevent challenges to affidavit and special ballots. Tkaczyk, a Democrat from Duanesburg, bested George Amedore by 18 votes after a lengthy, court-supervised counting process.

Venezuela: White House Petition Site Draws Venezuelan Crowds | Nextgov.com

The petition website designed to give citizens “a direct line to the White House on the issues and concerns that matter most” is proving popular outside the U.S. as well. An April 15 We the People petition asking the Obama administration to urge a recount in the Venezuelan presidential election skyrocketed to nearly 100,000 signatures in just two days online, making it one of the fastest growing petitions ever posted to the 19-month-old White House website. The petition has now received 124,000 signatures and is the second most popular unanswered petition on We the People. It was filed the day after Nicolas Maduro, the handpicked successor of Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez, narrowly defeated challenger Henrique Capriles Radonski to win the South American nation’s top office. Capriles has challenged the result, citing voting irregularities.

Editorials: Sandra Day O’Connor Regrets Bush v. Gore | New York Times

Now she tells us. More than 12 years after the fact, retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said it was probably a mistake for the Supreme Court to hear Bush v. Gore and anoint George W. Bush as president of the United States. “It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue,” Justice O’Connor told the Chicago Tribune editorial board on Friday. “Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.’” She continued: “Obviously the court did reach a decision and thought it had to reach a decision. It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn’t done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day.”

Venezuela: Presidential election vote recount begins | Xinhua

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) Monday began a partial recount of votes cast in the contested April 14 presidential elections, which saw Nicolas Maduro win by a razor-thin margin, local media reported. The auditing process, which is being boycotted by the opposition, calls for a technical board to inspect 12,000 ballot boxes in 30 days, as approved last Friday by Venezuela’s electoral authorities. In the next few days, auditors are to be selected and trained for the review of a random selection of 46 percent of ballot boxes that were not already audited on election day.

Venezuela: Opposition to boycott vote audit | USAToday

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

Venezuela: The Roots of Venezuela’s Recount | The National Interest

After fourteen years of Hugo Chávez’s personalist leadership, Venezuelans took their first steps into a brave new world of political contestation on April 14 when they elected a president to fulfill Chávez’s term. The fireworks that marked the aggressive campaign are, in a sense, still going off. The unexpectedly close special presidential election between interim president Nicolás Maduro and opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, with a difference of 1.8 percent of the vote (or 272,865 votes), was followed by postelection turmoil in the streets and opposing international calls for either a vote recount or immediate recognition of Maduro’s slim victory.