India: After VVPAT snag, repolling ordered at 48 polling stations | PTI

The Election Commission on Tuesday ordered repolling in 48 polling stations falling in Majitha, Muktsar and Sangrur Assembly segments in Punjab following malfunctioning in the Voter-Verified Audit Paper Trail (VVPAT) EVMs on 4 February. The repolling will take place on 9 February. Besides, the repolling will also take place at polling stations in Moga and Sardulgarh segments where EVMs displayed the votes polled during mock polls. “The repolling will take place at 48 polling stations because of the malfunctioning in VVPAT on polling day. The repolling will take place on 9 February,” Punjab Chief Electoral Officer V K Singh said here on Tuesday. He said polling stations where the repolling shall take place are in Majitha, Muktsar and Sangrur assembly segments where VVPAT developed snag. Singh further said that repolling would also be held at polling stations in Moga and Sardulgarh Assembly segments.

India: Paper-trail voting machines a ‘nightmare’, says Punjab chief electoral officer after glitches | assembly-elections | Hindustan Times

A large number of voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines, installed for the first time in the ongoing Punjab assembly polls, have developed snags. Reports of a large number of machines developing technical snags have come in from Majitha and Sangrur constituencies. “It’s a logistical nightmare — we have fewer engineers and more complaints,” said Punjab chief electoral officer VK Singh.

Texas: Lawmakers mull paper backups for electronic voting machines | KGBT

Following repeated allegations by Republican Donald Trump that the election may be rigged to ensure a win for Democrat Hillary Clinton, Texas lawmakers are actively considering ways to boost confidence in the state’s elections during next year’s legislative session. Among the ideas drawing interest: adding paper trail backups to thousands of electronic voting machines. The idea was brought up in a tweet Saturday by Gov. Greg Abbott. “That’s a great idea & we are considering it as an election reform measure. Election integrity is essential,” Abbott tweeted in response to a voter who tweeted that he wanted printed proof of how he cast his ballot. Over the last decade, several Texas lawmakers have filed bills to require paper trails on electronic voting machine. The proposals often include adding a printer in a sealed case to the state’s electronic voting machines so voters could check their votes against the receipt. The paper trail could be consulted in the event of a recount.

Botswana: Row over electronic voting machines in Botswana | The Southern Times

Political parties in Botswana are planning a demonstration to protest the introduction of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) in the upcoming general elections. The march, which will be held on 17 September in Gaborone, is being organised by the four opposition political parties; Botswana National Front (BNF), Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD), Botswana Congress Party (BCP) and Botswana People’s Party (BPP). While the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) recently said that it was still to be consulted on the introduction of voting machine by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) it has not shown interest in joining the protest. Speaking on behalf of opposition parties recently, the BNF secretary-general, Moeti Mohwana, said they reject the use of EVM in 2019 elections, unless safeguards and audit trail accompany its use.

India: Government exploring involving start-ups to make EVMs and VVPAT units | Business Standard News

With an eye on better technology and competitive prices, the government is exploring possibility of involving start-ups to make EVMs with the voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) units, which are being currently produced by the PSUs Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), said informed sources. The decision to rope in the start-ups for producing the EVMs coupled with paper trail machines was taken following the cabinet decision to allocate Rs 920 crore for the purchase of the EVMs by the Election Commission. The only caveat is that machines to be produced by the start-ups will have to comply with the security requirements, they said.

India: PMK to seek audit of voter paper trail | Business Standard

The PMK will seek an audit or cross-checking of May 16 polling as recorded by the electronic voting machines and on the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system, said party leader Anbumani Ramadoss. The party will also seek an amendment to the Representation of the People Act giving the Election Commission sufficient powers to conduct the polls in a free and fair manner like the powers to disqualify a party or a candidate for bribing voters and other acts. “We will soon petition the Election Commission to audit the paper trail system (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) that was installed in 17 assembly constituencies during the May 16 assembly polls in Tamil Nadu,” former union minister and PMK leader Ramadoss told IANS. “We demand reverting to paper ballot system. The voting machines can be tampered with in couple of minutes. The system can be programmed in such a way that every fifth vote will be in favour of a particular party,” Ramadoss said.

Philippines: High court orders Comelec to activate voting receipts | Inquirer News

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to issue voting receipts as a verification mechanism for the electorate in the May 9 elections, the first time the poll body was compelled to issue printouts of voters’ choices since automated counting in the country began in 2010. In a unanimous ruling, the high court ordered the Comelec to use the voter verification paper audit trail in voting machines, which will issue a receipt to each voter after casting his or her ballot. The ruling came just two months before Election Day. “The Commission on Elections is ordered to enable the vote verification feature of the vote-counting machines, which prints the voter’s choices,” the high court said in the dispositive portion of its ruling.

India: 2019 general elections to have paper-trail electronic voting machines | The Economic Times

Polling for 2019 general elections will be conducted through paper trail-based electronic voting machines to “enhance transparency”. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Nasim Zaidi also said that voting through the internet is not on EC’s agenda in the near future though it is going to use information and communication technology (ICT) in a big way to reach the voters in the coming days. “We have reached a stage where people are demanding hundred per cent deployment of paper audit trail machine. We have preserved the secrecy (in this system) as well. Our plan is that by 2019, the whole country will be covered by paper audit trail machines. The budget for this has been committed now,” Zaidi said while addressing an international seminar today. The next general elections are due in 2019.

Editorials: Hosemann’s ideas fine but incomplete | The Greenwood Commonwealth

Delbert Hosemann is back at it, trying to convince the Mississippi Legislature that there is still much work to be done to bring Mississippi’s voting procedures into the 21st century while also taking steps to reduce the potential for fraud or dirty tricks. The secretary of state, now beginning his third term, did an admirable job implementing voter ID, an oversold and overemotional issue that distracted this state from addressing where its biggest problem with voter fraud lies — absentee ballots. Hosemann’s newest proposals don’t tackle absentee-ballot fraud head-on either, although his pitch for allowing voters to cast their ballots in person at the courthouse for up to 21 days before Election Day should reduce the number of absentee ballots cast overall. Still, if you are a candidate inclined to cheat, you’re going to use mail-in absentee ballots anyway, since the fraud becomes much harder to catch that way. Even with that said, though, allowing no-excuse early voting is a good idea that should, if nothing else, increase voter turnout. It certainly eliminates one of the main excuses of people who don’t get to the polls. … A glaring omission in what is otherwise a good package of proposals is Hosemann’s silence on a disturbing trend in this state to eliminate the paper trail on voting. More than three-fourths of the 77 counties in Mississippi with touch-screen voting machines have disconnected their external printers, by which voters could previously verify on paper that their vote has been accurately recorded.

Editorials: Paper trail is simply prudent | Tim Kalich/The Greenwood Commonwealth

Elmus Stockstill and Edward Course surely have no devious intentions in wanting to get the external printers off Leflore County’s touch-screen voting machines. But the county’s two top election officials are just wrong — and obviously not well-schooled — on how susceptible electronic voting machines are to hacking and why these printers are the only safeguard against it. Just 10 minutes on the Internet will turn up a decade worth of studies and reports showing that all it takes is access, a basic knowledge of electronics and a few minutes to rig voting machines like those used in Leflore County. I recommend the Board of Supervisors spends 30 minutes reading the study summaries or watching the videos produced by university and government researchers demonstrating the vulnerabilities of so-called “direct recording electronic” (DRE) voting equipment made by Diebold or any of the other touch-screen manufacturers. If the supervisors educated themselves the tiniest bit on this subject, they would see how comical it was of Stockstill, the circuit clerk, to talk — in response to a column I wrote last Sunday — of the memory card inserted in the machines as some kind of fail-safe against hacking. The memory card is actually one likely conduit for introducing a vote-stealing virus.

Namibia: NEFF skeptical over electronic voting machines | New Era

The Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF), who failed to secure a single seat in last year’s National Assembly and Presidential elections, say they are ready for the upcoming regional and local authority elections slated for November. The NEFF has qualms though with the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to be used without paper trails. The Director of Elections, Professor Paul Isaak, was quoted last week saying the upcoming elections would be conducted without a voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT). “We have this doubt about the EVMs without paper trials. I don’t know whether Swapo is the enemy of democracy or what. You cannot force people to use something that is not verifiable and claim to have everything free and fair,” NEFF National Coordinator Kalimbo Iipumbu said on Monday.

Editorials: South Carolina’s new voting system must be secure | Walt McLeod/The State

When I cast my first ballot, I voted on a paper ballot for Daniel R. McLeod, who was elected attorney general and served for the next 24 years. At that time, voting machines in South Carolina were limited to several urban counties. As I recall, election security consisted of a padlocked plywood ballot box, the key to which was attached to a modest chain connected to the padlock. I did not give much thought to the mechanics of elections, or how the poll managers tabulated the election results from the paper ballots cast. Though no election is perfectly conducted, most of us engage in faith-based voting, meaning that we as voters have faith that, for the most part, our election procedures work properly. We have faith that when we cast our ballots, our votes are recorded as intended. Sometimes, we must stop to examine that faith. Recently, I viewed a documentary film titled “I Voted?” by filmmaker Jason Grant Smith. His film opened my eyes to our systemic voting challenges.

Namibia: Landmark e-voting to go ahead in Namibia after court challenge fails | Mail & Guardian

Namibia is to become the first African country to use electronic voting machines in a general election, after the Windhoek high court dismissed a legal challenge by an opposition political party. The Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) filed an urgent court application to seek the annulment and postponement of the presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled for this Friday, arguing that the machines violate Namibia’s newly amended Electoral Act because they leave no paper trail. The party was joined in its high court application by the African Labour and Human Rights Centre’s director August Maletzky and the Workers Revolutionary Party. But on Wednesday the high court rejected the claims that the use of the e-voting machines was unconstitutional and a breach of the Electoral Act. The Act stipulates that use of the machines in polling should be “subject to the simultaneous utilisation of a verifiable paper trail for every vote cast by a voter and any vote cast is verified by account of the paper trail”. It continues: “In the event that the results of the voting machines and the results of the paper trail do not tally, the paper trail results are accepted as the election outcome for the polling station or voting thread concerned.”

Namibia: Polls face legal challenge by opposition | News24

Three opposition parties brought an urgent application before the Windhoek High Court on Tuesday requesting it to postpone Friday’s parliamentary and presidential elections. “We ask the court to direct the electoral commission to stop the use of electronic voting machines [EVMs] as they do not produce a verifiable paper trail for every vote cast by the voter,” the first applicant, August Maletzky, asked Judge Kobus Miller. “We further ask the court to declare a section of the recently promulgated new elections act, which allows to suspend certain clauses of the new act and to direct the commission to conduct free and fair elections in February 2015,” Maletzky added. Elections are slated for this coming Friday, when 1.24 million eligible voters will elect a new government.

Namibia: Half of electronic voting machines yet to arrive | The Namibian

Two months before Namibians head to the polls, the Electoral Commission of Namibia has only half of the electronic voting machines required to hold successful elections. The Namibian reported in May this year that the ECN had planned to purchase 3 500 additional EVMs for the national and presidential elections at the cost of N$30 million, in order to supplement the current 3 500 EVMs. However, this has not happened. ECN director of operations Theo Mujoro yesterday said they are aware that the current number of machines would not be sufficient to cover the elections and therefore there is a need to purchase more. “The machines will be available by mid-October to supplement the current number that is in our possession, “ said Mujoro. He added that for each polling station, there will be two ballot units connected to a control unit which allows the voter to cast their vote like in a ballot election and in this way to replicate the manual election process. The EVM consists of a ballot unit, a control unit and a tabulator with printers.

India: Electronic voting machine slip will help verify your vote | The Times of India

This time, voters in Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency will be able to verify if their vote has been cast right. Once they press the button of their choice, a slip will be generated which will indicate the vote that has been actually cast by the EVM when the voter pressed the button. On a pilot basis, the Election Commission of India (ECI) is introducing ‘Voter Verifiable Paper Auditor Trail’ (VVPAT) system in eight Lok Sabha constituencies across the country and Gandhinagar is one of them. The VVPAT machine will be attached with the EVM and will generate slips like the receipts one gets at ATMs.

India: Election Commission to introduce VVPAT countrywide on experimental basis | Moneycontrol

The Election Commission will introduce Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) countrywide on experimental basis to ensure a fair Lok Sabha poll. The VVPAT is a paper slip which will come out of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) once a voter casts his vote, showing which symbol and candidate the vote has been cast for. The slip will be automatically dropped in a sealed box attached to the EVM for use by the EC, Chief Electoral Officer in West Bengal Sunil Gupta today said.

India: 10 percent of voting devices malfunctioned in Mizoram polls | Assam Tribune

Ten percent of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines, which verify to a voter that his or her vote was cast as wished, malfunctioned in the November 25 polls in Mizoram, an official said here Monday. “In all 21 VVPAT machines of 212 placed in 10 constituencies in Aizawl district failed. Eleven VVPATs failed during routine checkup a day before the assembly polls, 10 more were unsuccessful during the polling day and had to be replaced,” Mizoram Chief Electoral officer (CEO) Ashwini Kumar told reporters. He said that the Electronic Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) delivered the machines to the Mizoram election department two weeks late which, coupled with the breakdown of the devices, led to “administrative challenges”.

Editorials: Supreme Court of India – Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails Must Be Used | James Tyre/EFF

Three years ago, I wrote of the controversy surrounding the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in India. A study by 2010 EFF Pioneer Award winner Hari Prasad and others showed that the EVMs could be hacked. For his troubles, Prasad was charged criminally for alleged theft of the EVM that was studied. The charges against Prasad have long since been dropped, but the controversy surrounding India’s electronic voting machines continues. Some have advocated that the EVMs be abandoned completely, and that India should go back to using old fashioned paper ballots. Others have claimed that the EVMs can be made more secure, but only if a Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is added. For a significant time, the Election Commission of India continued to maintain that the EVMs were tamper proof. However, a number of different lawsuits were brought challenging the use of EVMs without VVPATs. The most significant was a public interest litigation action brought byDr. Subramanian Swamy. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of India ruled in favor of Dr. Swamy, reversing an earlier ruling by the High Court of Delhi.

India: Supreme Court orders Election Commission to add ‘paper trail’ to e-voting machines | Computerworld

India’s Supreme Court has directed the country’s Election Commission to introduce a paper backup of votes cast through electronic voting machines, but allowed the commission to introduce it in stages during general elections next year. Political and civil rights groups in India have been demanding that the EVMs should be equipped with the facility to print the running record of the votes for the purpose of verification, particularly after some researchers claimed that the machines could be hacked. The court, overruling a decision by a lower court, described the paper backup or paper trail as an “indispensable requirement of free and fair elections.” As the commission has to handle 1 million polling booths during a general election, the court permitted it to introduce the facility “in gradual stages or geographical-wise” at voting booths of its choice. The commission submitted in the court that the machines could not be tampered with, but was still planning to introduce a Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail system, and had tested the systems in smaller elections.

India: Election Commission agrees in principle to voting machines with printouts | IBN

The Election Commission on Friday told the Supreme Court that it was in principle ready to introduce voting machines which give a printed record to voters once they exercise their franchise. The election panel said it had placed an order for 20,000 machines with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) facility and these will be introduced in a phased manner. The apex court bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi accepted the commission’s stand on limitations in procurement of the new machines and said: “You try. We realise your problem. You can’t implement it in entire country (in one go).”

India: Election Commission orders 20,000 additional electronic voting machines | Times Of India

The Election Commission has ordered two lakh additional electronic voting machines (EVMs) to meet the shortfall in the event of early Lok Sabha polls being held along with assembly polls in five states due later this year. “We have ordered around 2 lakh voting machines to meet the shortfall,” a senior EC official told TOI. The two lakh machines, to be supplied by BHEL and ECIL by September-October, will be in addition to the nearly 14 lakh EVMs already in possession of the EC. Half of these 14 lakh machines date back to pre-2006 period and may be prone to snags. They can take only 800 votes each, unlike the post-2006 EVMs with which around 2,000 voters can vote.

India: Election Commission to meet parties on introducing paper trail of votes | The Statesman

Voters may soon be able to trail their ballot and confirm whether their vote on the Electronic Voting Machine has gone in favour of the candidate they chose. The trail will involve issuance of a printed slip for voter confirmation and will become a reality once the newly proposed Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system is introduced by the Election Commission. The system comes in the wake of apprehensions expressed by political parties especially the BJP in respect of fairness of EVMs. The EC, which told the Supreme Court last week that it had recently approved the VVPAT design and sought its further fine tuning to ensure zero error, has invited the representatives of various political parties on 10 May to discuss the new system.

Verified Voting in the News: California Assembly committee passes Internet voting bill with secret amendments | Kim Alexander’s Weblog

Last Tuesday at the California Assembly Elections committee hearing,AB 19 by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) was heard and passed on a 4-3 vote. If enacted, the bill would create a California online voting pilot program. Over the weekend, while cleaning out some old papers, I had deja vu moment when I came across a December 4, 2000 news release issued by then-Assembly Majority Leader Kevin Shelley announcing the introduction of AB 55, which among other things, as originally introduced would have established an online voting pilot program under the direction of the Secretary of State. That provision was ultimately amended out, and Mr. Shelley would go on to become the Secretary of State of California and one of the nation’s first political leaders to support a voter verified paper audit trail and mandatory election recounts.

Mississippi: Democrats request return of paper audit trail printers in Chickasaw County | chickasaw360.com

The Chickasaw County Board of Supervisors heard a request from the Democratic Executive Committee to reinstate the paper trail in the electronic voting machines at their Sept. 4 meeting. Circuit Clerk Sandra Willis said when the Diebold machines were first installed, the county paid for an addition of an attachment that provided a paper readout of the voter’s choices, but the machine additions did not work well and were discontinued. Willis said the $250 additions jammed often and most voters never asked for copies of their voting choices to be printed, instead reading them on the electronic screen and approving them. However, Willis also said the additions could be reinstalled if the board so chose. “It will cost you more money and more headaches,” Willis warned.

India: Supreme Court to examine plea on electronic voting machines printers | The Economic Times

The Supreme Court today agreed to take up for hearing on priority basis Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy’s plea to incorporate paper printouts in electronic voting machines or restore paper balloting system allegedly because EVMs “are not tamper proof.” “We will hear the matter on a priority basis so that it is concluded by the next parliamentary elections. That is the reason we are giving the priority,” said a bench of justices P Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi. The bench adjourned the matter for further hearing on September 27 after hearing Swamy’s submission for over an hour and asked the Election Commission to be prepared with its submission.

India: Court Refuses to Direct Election Commission on Paper Records on electronic voting machines | PCWorld

A court in Delhi on Tuesday declined to direct India’s Election Commission to have paper receipts of votes recorded on electronic voting machines (EVMs), or go back to ballot paper. The High Court of Delhi said that there may be security issues with EVMs, as pointed out by petitioner Subramanian Swamy, a prominent politician, and asked India’s Election Commission to resolve the issues in consultation with stakeholders including the country’s Parliament. Swamy had earlier argued that EVMs could be tampered with, a view he shares with a number of researchers and activists in the country. He said in a telephone interview that the Election Commission will now have to have to get into consultations with all concerned parties, including him, to resolve the security issues. “You can say that, de facto, I have won the case,” he added.

Mississippi: County seeking DOJ approval to remove voting machine printers | Leader Call

Jones County Circuit Clerk Bart Gavin is waiting for a decision from the U.S. Department of Justice about the legality of removing printers from the county’s voting machines. Gavin gained the approval of the Jones County Board of Supervisors in August, but at the suggestion of District 5 Supervisor Jerome Wyatt, Gavin has to provide information stating that no laws will be violated if the printers are removed.

“Our voting machines were not designed to have these printers,” said Gavin. “The Mississippi Legislature decided we should add the printers after we switched to electronic voting machines.” The printers are extra attachments that were added to the voting machines at the request of then-Secretary of State Eric Clark. Gavin said he understands the desire to have a back-up record of votes cast, but the printers are not needed for back-up.

Voting Blogs: ‘There is No Way for Them to be Tampered With’: Mississippi Election Clerk Gets Approval to Remove Paper Trail Printers from Diebold Touch-Screens | The Brad Blog

The Jones County, Mississippi slogan is “A Great Place to Live”. While they may or may not be true, I’ve never been there, it’s clearly not a great place to vote. At least if voting in a way that is verifiably accurate for the citizenry is something one might care about. A remarkable statement by the county’s Circuit Clerk, and a unanimous decision in support of it by the County’s Board of Supervisors this week has made that as clear as can be.

You may recall that just last week, e-voting system failures — such as, as e-voting machines that wouldn’t start up at all, and votes that were counted twice — led to chaos and uncertain results in Mississippi’s state primaries, leading one official to declare days afterward, as they were all struggling to sort out results of several close elections: “At this point there is no election…Everyone is baffled.”

Against that back drop then, behold what Jones County, MS Circuit Clerk Bart Gavinis now calling for — and receiving unanimous approval from the Jones County Board of Supervisors for(!) — as irresponsibly reported without even a hint of fact-checking by Laurel Leader-Call reporter Charlotte Graham under the laughably misleading headline “Improving the voting process” [emphasis added].

India: Setback to Election Commission as India paper trail pilot poll reports errors | menafn.com

In a setback to the Election Commission (EC), its pilot poll conducted on Sunday to establish a paper trail for electronic voting machines (EVMs) reported significant errors.

Preliminary results of the EC pilot poll indicated discrepancies between votes polled in EVMs and the paper trail, according to three people involved and familiar with the testing process. Two of them are EC officials who confirmed the mismatch, but did not give any more details. EC will release a comprehensive report on the pilot poll in a few days.

“Even a difference of one vote is not acceptable,” said one of the EC officials, who, like the other EC official familiar with the matter, asked not to be identified given the controversial nature of the findings.