Solomon Islands: Police investigate ballot box theft as vote counting underway | ABC

Police in Solomon Islands have recovered a ballot box after it was briefly stolen by an election official following yesterday’s historic polls. Vote counting is underway in the country’s general election, the first to be led by the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force. The 10-year Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was reduced to a police mission supporting local police last year. Solomons police confirmed a ballot box was stolen by an election official as a boat was being loaded to go to a central counting station. The incident happened near Auki, in the eastern part of the island of Malaita.

Romania: Irregularities cloud Romanian election runoff | EurActiv

As the first round of the Romanian presidential election has passed, many legal irregularities and troublesome voting procedures cast uncertainty over the second round. Euractiv.ro reports. The two candidates that have moved on into the second round of the Romanian presidential election are Victor Ponta (PSD) and Klaus Iohannis (ACL). The latest partial results presented by the Central Electoral Office show Ponta with 40.33% of the number of valid votes and Iohannis with 30.44%. Although Ponta is leading by 10%, nothing is certain for the second round. An important element that stands to influence the second round is represented by the actions of the former candidates. Combined, all the other 12 candidates have gained almost 30% of the votes, half of which were cast for the first three, including Călin Popescu Tăriceanu (independent, a former liberal Prime Minister), Elena Udrea (PMP, a former Liberal Democrat Minister of Development) and Monica Macovei (independent, currently a member of the European Parliament).

Namibia: Electoral commission quashes fears of vote rigging | GlobalPost

The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) has moved to allay fears of vote rigging and corruption after opposition parties raised alarm about the use of electronic voting machines without a paper trail. Namibians are set to go to the polls in November to elect the country’s third democratically elected president as well as members of the National Assembly. The November plebiscite will for the first time make use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) that were purchased from India, but the absence of a paper trail to be used in conjunction with the voting machines has seen members of the opposition crying foul. Despite the use of the voting machines in regional by elections held recently that were declared free and fair, the opposition feel that the absence of a verifiable paper trial will see results of the November election being manipulated in favor of the ruling party South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO).

United Kingdom: Independence Vote-Rigging Conspiracy Theory Sweeping Scotland | Business Insider

An online petition demanding a revote in the Scottish independence referendum is now at almost 100,000 signatures as vote rigging conspiracies continue to gain momentum among disappointed pro-independence campaigners. It didn’t take long for accusations of voting irregularities to start swirling after Scotland voted “No” to independence on September 18th. In the aftermath of the result, pro-independence Yes campaigners have taken to social media in large numbers to complain about reported incidents of vote fraud and demand a return to the polls. The accusations come despite First Minister Alex Salmond, leader of the Yes campaign, calling on pro-independence supporters to “accept the democratic decision.“

Afghanistan: Third Round of Elections or Coup | Foreign Policy

July 7, Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced the preliminary results of the country’s presidential election. According to the IEC’s chairman, Ashraf Ghani received 56.44 percent of the votes in the June 14 runoff; he had placed second during the first round of elections, with 31.56 percent. His opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, who fell just short of an outright majority in the first round with 45.00 percent, only received 43.56 percent in the runoff. The fact is that although the magnitude and scope of the fraud is unclear thus far, the integrity of the election has been tainted beyond repair. This has caused some, including Abdullah’s vice presidential running mate, Mohammad Mohaqiq, to describe the preliminary results as a “coup” against voters. Election observers have already noted that the number of votes cast in the runoff was not anywhere close to the 8.1 million quoted by the IEC; nor have they accepted the notion that 37.6 percent of that number reflects votes of women.

Afghanistan: Election officials admit voter fraud, delay results in presidential vote | Associated Press

Former finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai has the lead in Afghanistan’s disputed presidential election, according to a preliminary tally released Monday despite allegations of massive fraud. The announcement came as Ahmadzai is locked in a standoff with his rival Abdullah Abdullah, who has refused to accept any results until all fraudulent ballots are invalidated. The Independent Election Commission acknowledged that vote rigging had occurred and promised to launch a more extensive investigation before final results are released. “We cannot ignore that there were technical problems and fraud that took place during the election process,” the commission’s chairman Ahmad Yousuf Nouristani said. “We are not denying fraud in the election, some governors and Afghan government officials were involved in fraud.”

Afghanistan: Election results delayed amid fraud accusations | Reuters

Preliminary results from Afghanistan’s presidential election, due to be announced on Wednesday, have been delayed, an election official said, amid accusations of fraud that threaten to split the fragile country along ethnic lines. Votes from around 2,000 polling stations in the June 14 run-off are to be reviewed and recounted, said Sharifa Zurmati Wardak of the Independent Election Commission (IEC). The contest pitted former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah against former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani. “This will take nearly a week and the final result won’t be announced on time,” Wardak told Reuters.

Mauritania: President accuses opposition of vote-rigging | GlobalPost

Mauritania’s president accused the opposition on Tuesday of buying up people’s identity cards in an attempt to prevent them from voting in an upcoming election. President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, an ex-army general, is seeking re-election in the vote this Saturday, and rival politicians have called for voters to boycott what they call a “sham” election. The president’s spokesman said the government had received reports that the opposition was buying identity cards “to influence the participation rate”.

Malawi: Joyce Banda demands recount amid rigging fears | The Guardian

The Malawi president has called for an immediate manual audit of this week’s election results, alleging serious irregularities after the electoral commission reported its vote-tallying system had collapsed. “It has come to my attention that there (are) some serious irregularities in the counting and announcement of results in some parts of the country,” Joyce Banda said. She said unofficial partial results revealed vote tallies that exceeded the total number of registered voters in some constituencies. Discarded and tampered ballots had also been discovered, said Banda, who faces her first electoral test since she succeeded Bingu wa Mutharika after his death two years ago.

Editorials: Inside Putin’s Rigged Ukraine Election | The Daily Beast

Shortly before separatist leaders here declared a huge majority had voted in a referendum to break from Ukraine, their press spokeswoman had chortled at the idea that a result would be declared a mere three hours after polling stations closed. “Are you crazy? How would we have time to count the ballots?” said Claudia. Precisely, how indeed? But then despite a series of opinion polls over the past few weeks showing only a minority of eastern Ukrainians wanted to follow the example of the Black Sea peninsula and secede, the plebiscite in Donetsk—one of two of Ukraine’s easternmost regions voting Sunday—was always a foregone conclusion. The procedures in the plebiscite managed by Denis Pushilin, a former casino croupier who is the co-chairman of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, followed the Kremlin’s house rules: the cynical strategies and plays of Russian-style “managed democracy,” not the electoral models outlined by organizations such as the United Nations or the International Foundation for Electoral Systems.

Ukraine: Kyiv calls referendums a ‘farce’ as breakaway regions declare independence | Al Jazeera

Ukraine’s government condemned referendums in eastern Ukraine as a “farce” on Monday, as separatists from the pro-Moscow regions declared independence and asked to join Russia. Organizers said 89 percent of those who cast ballots Sunday in the Donetsk region and about 96 percent of those who turned out in Luhansk voted for sovereignty for the sprawling areas that lie along Russia’s border and form Ukraine’s industrial heartland. Donetsk has about 4.4 million people, and Luhansk has 2.2 million. The results were seized upon by separatists who pushed for further autonomy from Kyiv and annexation by Russia. On Monday, the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) declared the region independent and signaled a desire to follow Crimea in being annexed by Moscow.

Solomon Islands: Electoral Commission says no complaints made over voter fraud | Radio Australia

Solomon Islands’ Electoral Commission says a formal complaint must be made before there is any investigation into voter rigging. Solomon Islands’ Electoral Commission says a formal complaint must be made before there is any investigation into allegations of electoral fraud. Chief electoral officer, Polycarp Haununu, says the commission has not received a single report of vote rigging, despite widespread rumours voters are selling their identification cards in exchange for political support. “Since the beginning of the registration, my office hasn’t received any formal complaints about buying of ID cards,” Mr Haununu told Pacific Beat.

Ukraine: Pro-Russian Separatists Declare Victory in East Ukraine Vote | Wall Street Journal

Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine declared victory in a secession referendum Sunday, ratcheting up tensions between the West and Moscow, which by recognizing the results could push the country toward a breakup. Ukraine called the vote illegal and riddled with irregularities, and part of a wider campaign by Moscow to punish Kiev for pursuing closer relations with Europe. But Sunday’s vote saw long lines at some polling places and was immediately hailed as a triumph by separatist leaders and Russian state media. Kiev’s fledgling government is scrambling to mount presidential elections May 25, which it hopes will shore up its legitimacy, and faces growing hurdles after losing control of provinces in the east to pro-Russian rebels. Local police in the region are of dubious loyalty, and army units have stalled in their offensive against rebel strongholds.

Ukraine: Pro-Russians run vote, count vote, win vote in Ukraine’s east | The Australian

Pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine say preliminary results of a contentious referendum show nearly 90 per cent of voters have supported sovereignty for their region. Roman Lyagin, election chief of the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic, said around 75 per cent of the region’s 3 million voters cast ballots Sunday. With no independent observers monitoring the vote, however, verifying the figures will prove problematic. Although the voting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions appeared mostly peaceful, armed men identified as members of the Ukrainian national guard opened fire on a crowd outside a town hall in Krasnoarmeisk, and an official with the region’s insurgents said people were killed. It was not clear how many. The bloodshed took place hours after dozens of armed men shut down the voting in the town, and it starkly showed the hair-trigger tensions in the east, where pro-Russian separatists have seized government buildings and clashed with Ukrainian forces over the past month.

Algeria: Benflis vows to monitor Algeria vote, protest any fraud | Al Arabiya

Presidential hopeful Ali Benflis said Tuesday that thousands of his supporters would monitor Algeria’s election, vowing to protest if it is rigged in favour of ailing incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who is seeking re-election. Benflis is seen as the president’s main rival, and has repeatedly warned of fraud during the election campaign, describing it as his “main adversary” in Thursday’s vote. Speaking to reporters in Algiers, he said he had an “army” of people in place to monitor the poll “consisting of 60,000 people, most of them young men and women armed to the teeth with conviction. If the election is rigged, I will not keep quiet,” Benflis said.

Ukraine: Leaked UN report claims Russia “rigged” Crimea referendum | The Voice of Russia

A draft UN report on human rights in Ukraine reportedly acquired by US-based political magazine Foreign Policy claims Russia “rigged” the referendum in Crimea, the news outlet said on its website. The draft report, written by UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic, alleges the Russian government actively repressed the possibility of dissent or anti-Russian sentiment in the run-up to the referendum. “The delegation met with sources who claimed that there had been alleged cases of non-Ukrainian citizens participating in the referendum as well as individuals voting numerous times in different locations,” said an excerpt of the draft report published by Foreign Policy last Thursday, referring to allegations of Russia’s multiple efforts to “rig” the vote results in Crimea.

Ukraine: Reports cast doubt on results of Crimea referendum | McClatchy

On March 16, as Crimeans voted in a referendum on joining Russia, a convoy of Russian minibuses and cars drew up to the center of Lytvynenkove, a village about 15 miles northeast of the peninsular capital. Members of the local self-defense committee of Crimean Tatars, the Muslim minority group who were exiled under Stalin but returned here when Communist rule collapsed, watched with trepidation as about 50 men, some in track suits and others in military uniform, got out of the vehicles. But the passengers hadn’t come to bully the local Tatar population, which had announced a boycott. Instead, they headed into the local polling station. The two white vans and the several cars were registered in Krasnodar, Russia. The men’s accents were Russian, and so from their appearance were they – those in uniform were Don Cossacks, a famed fighting force that served the czars and now, experts say, has become a sort of Pretorian guard for Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Political tourists” traveling by the van-load from one polling station to the next have been a feature of Ukrainian elections going back more than a decade – locals call it “carousel voting” – but this was the first time that anyone had heard of foreigners getting into the act, a Tatar organizer said.

Turkey: Citizens have right to monitor elections for fraud-free voting, says activist | Today’s Zaman

Selen Gülün is a mayoral candidate who seeks no votes! A successful musician, she is a candidate for mayor for the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality, just because a civil society initiative wants to monitor the election process to make sure that there is no vote rigging on the March 30 local elections, and the only way for doing it was to show a mayoral candidate. “I’ve become an independent candidate for mayor of İstanbul. Of course, I seek no votes, and I’ve also become a volunteer for the ‘Sandık Başındayız’ [Ballot Watch], so I will work on March 30 to monitor the voting process,” says Gülün. Başındayız reminds us that there is a dire need for independent civil society organizations in Turkey’s highly polarized environment. Their survival and growth would mean that Turkish society deserves to exercise full citizenship rights in a pluralistic setting.

Solomon Islands: Allegations of widespread fraud ahead of Solomon Islands elections | ABC

Less than two weeks since the introduction of a biometric voter registration system in Solomon Islands there are allegations of electoral fraud. Transparency Solomon Islands says it’s already received reports of widespread vote rigging ahead of the national election later this year. TSI’s chief executive Daniel Fenua says there is anecdotal evidence of candidates taking possession of scores of ID cards. He says the cards are purcahsed from individual voters.

Ukraine: The Crimean Farce: Russia’s margin of victory shows the election was rigged. | Slate

The people of Crimea have spoken. In yesterday’s referendum, they voted overwhelmingly to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. According to Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency, the vote was 93 percent to 7 percent. According to Russia Today, it was 96 percent to 3 percent. It’s an amazing victory. Even more amazing when you consider that according to the most recent census, 37 percent of the Crimean population is ethnically Ukrainian or Tatar. Yet only 3 to 7 percent voted against leaving Ukraine and embracing Mother Russia. To be fair, it’s not quite as amazing as last week’s election in North Korea. There, beloved leader Kim Jong-in was re-elected to the parliament with 100 percent of the vote. The ruling party holds all 687 seats. And last year in Cuba, voters approved 100 percent of the national assembly candidates put forward by official nominating committees. How do exemplary democracies such as Russia, Cuba, and North Korea achieve these mandates? By rigging them, of course.

Maldives: Run-off vote to be held despite court delay – official | Reuters

The Maldives will go ahead with a presidential election run-off on September 28, election commissioner Fuwad Thowfeek said on Thursday, despite a decision by the Supreme Court to postpone the second round following a complaint of vote rigging. Thowfeek’s comments followed mounting international pressure on the government to push ahead with a run-off, amid hopes it could end political turmoil in the Indian Ocean archipelago. The first round of voting, on September 7, was won by ex-president Mohamed Nasheed, whose removal from power 20 months ago ignited months of unrest. He secured 45.45 percent in the first round, short of the 50 percent needed for outright victory, and his party promptly announced mass protests against the postponement.

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.

Cambodia: Report: Hundreds of voters manipulated into casting fraudulent ballots | UPI.com

Officials knowingly transported hundreds of Cambodians to polling stations where they were not qualified to vote, a human rights group charges. A report released by the group Licadho said the voters were “intentionally manipulated” into casting the fraudulent ballots, The Phnom Penh Post reported Monday. In one alleged incident, Licadho said professors at a Phnom Penh university bussed hundreds of their students to a district some miles outside of the city. Other violations occurred, the group alleged, when more than 100 workers at a rock quarry in central Cambodia were taken to a newly created polling station near the national capital to vote.

Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe election hit by hacking and DDoS attacks | The Inquirer

Human rightts organizations in Zimbabwe were hit by cyber attacks during and after the African country’s election last Thursday, leading to suspicions of government suppression of election monitoring. Techweek Europe reported the attacks on Tuesday, saying that some were obviously targeted while other disruptions might have been merely collateral damage. Following the election, hosting providers in the country were hit by two sophisticated distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks over the weekend that took many websites that had been reporting voting results offline. Apparently the organisations hit included Fair Trade Africa, Privacy International and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum, which also told Techweek Europe that it suspected it had been targeted by a hacking attack earlier last week.

Editorials: Can Zimbabwe’s elections be free and fair? | Deutsche Welle

Election officials overseeing Zimbabwe’s July 31 ballot insist the country is ready to hold general elections in less than a week. However, fears of vote rigging and a lack of funding are worrying Zimbabweans. “Elections will be credible, free and fair. We are ready for the elections,” Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission [ZEC] deputy chairperson, Joyce Kazeme, told international election observers stationed in the country on Tuesday (24.07.2013). Some 600 foreign observers have been endorsed to scrutinize the country’s July 31 election as well as pre-poll voting for security officials assigned to work on election day. Close to 6,000 Zimbabwean observers will also monitor voting. International observers include representatives of the African Union, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Togo: Togolese to Vote as Opposition Threatens Protests Over Rigging – Businessweek

Voters in Togo will cast ballots in a parliamentary election tomorrow that’s been delayed for eight months amid concerns by opposition parties that the poll won’t be transparent and fair. President Faure Gnassingbe’s ruling Rally of the Togolese People will seek to protect its majority against the main opposition Union of Forces for Change, which threatened protests if it believes the results are rigged. The group challenged the outcome of a presidential vote in 2010 and say the West African nation’s electoral commission is dominated by supporters of Gnassingbe. The RPT denies the claim, saying the ballot will be transparent and fair. “Things can degenerate when the results are announced if anyone tries to falsify the results that come from the ballots,” Kuam Kouakouvi, a politics professor at Lome University in the capital, said in an interview on July 23. “Considering the enormous needs of the population, this would be hugely damaging.”

Zimbabwe: Documents reveal plan to rig elections | New Zimbabwe

Damning top-secret intelligence documents that expose President Robert Mugabe’s plans to rig the forthcoming election and crush his political rivals have been handed to The Mail on Sunday. The dossier reveals in astonishing detail how Mugabe is plotting to steal millions of votes with massive and systematic ballot-rigging combined with widespread intimidation by party thugs. His tactics, along with details of massive funding from named British, Chinese and African backers, are disclosed in highly confidential papers written for his closest aides. They were obtained from intelligence sources who risked their lives to expose the covert campaign to keep 89-year-old Mugabe and his military cabal in power.

Verified Voting in the News: California College Vote Hack | David Jefferson/Election Law Blog

I just read Doug Chapin’s article on the vote rigging at Cal State San Marcos, and I would add several observations.  Had this been a public election conducted via Internet voting, it would have been much more difficult to identify any problem or to capture the perpetrator, Mr. Weaver. Mr. Weaver was captured because he was voting from school-owned computers. This was networked voting but not really Internet voting. The IT staff was able to notice “unusual activity” on those computers, and via remote access they were able to “watch the user cast vote after vote”. But in a public online election people would vote from their own private PCs, and through the Internet, not on a network controlled by the IT staff of election officials. There will likely be no “unusual activity” to notice in real time, and no possibility of “remote access” to allow them to monitor activity on a voter’s computer.  Note also that university IT staff were able to monitor him while he was voting, showing that they were able to completely violate voting privacy, something we cannot tolerate in a public election.

Zimbabwe: Morgan Tsvangirai: Zimbabwe elections will be rigged | Telegraph

A political deal brought Mr Tsvangirai into government in 2009 after Mr Mugabe claimed victory in a bitterly disputed presidential contest that cost hundreds of lives. But in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Tsvangirai said he was not willing to repeat the experience. As he prepares to run for the presidency against Mr Mugabe for a third time, he made clear that if he lost on July 31, he would refuse any invitation to stay on as prime minister. Calling the survival of the coalition a “regressive step”, Mr Tsvangirai insisted: “The people of Zimbabwe are desperate to start on a new plate and actually give proper direction and proper policy direction to revive this economy, give people hope and actually start all over again.”

Iran: Election threatened by boycott | Toronto Star

In the end, Iran’s presidential election may be defined by who doesn’t vote. Arguments over whether to boycott Friday’s ballot still boiled over at coffee shops, kitchen tables and on social media among many liberal-leaning Iranians on the eve of the voting. The choice, once easy for many who turned their back in anger after years of crackdowns, has been suddenly complicated by an unexpected chance to perhaps wage a bit of payback against Iran’s rulers. The rising fortunes of the lone relative moderate left in the race, former nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani, has brought a dilemma for many Iranians who faced down security forces four years ago: Stay away from the polls in a silent protest or jump back into the mix in a system they claim has been disgraced by vote rigging. Which way the scales tip could set the direction of the election and the fate for Rowhani, a cleric who is many degrees of mildness removed from being an opposition leader. But he is still the only fallback option for moderates in an election that once seemed preordained for a pro-establishment loyalist.