Black Box Voting 2.0 – a curated nonpartisan reporting and public education site for elections.
[UPDATED 12/15/13] – Electronic voting machines have come under scrutiny in two Indian states for alleged irregularities. Officials for a historically dominant political party, the Congress Party,1 have filed a complaint with the Election Commission calling for an independent forensic evaluation of voting machine programming. The state president of another political party has called for a ban on electronic voting…
LAST UPDATED [12/15/13] – Next elections will be Parliamentary elections scheduled for Spring 2014. It will be the first election under the new Hungarian Constitution. RATINGS – Freedom: Rated 1 on a scale of 1-6, with 1 being most free. Overall civil liberties and political freedoms trended downward in 2010, due to passage of a controversial new constitution, with continuing…
If democracy is a painting created by its own audience, democracy without transparency is that audience blindfolded — trusting and hoping and not really knowing if they are having democracy at all.
LAST UPDATED [12/15/13] – The next general election in the US is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 4 2014. Throughout 2014 leading up to the general election, primary elections will be held in each state, with considerable variation in dates. Greatest risk areas: Centralization of vote reporting and voting machine programming, with over 99 percent of all votes counted out of…
LAST UPDATED [12/04/13] – The next election in Afghanistan is scheduled for April 5, 2014. Greatest risk areas: violence, and a national climate of corruption, from the President to the cop on the local street corner. RATINGS – Freedom: “Not free” rating 6 on a scale of 1-6, with 6 being least free.1 – Election Risk: Highest, rated 10 on…
“Victims were told by perpetrators . . . that they were cutting off their hands as punishment for using their hands in the 1996 vote.” (Sierra Leone war amputees learn to vote with their feet)
“Money, politics, and crime are the main elements of power struggles in any society.” (In fact, pretty much everything in politics is really about money.)
A news director for Bighorn Radio Network, who reported on some troubling programming problems with local voting machines during the 2012 general election, was arrested a few months later on charges that he had voted as a felon; He had been convicted for burglary in 1993 in another state and had served out a suspended sentence and probation. Twenty years…
“As the lines of authority with the government erode, so too do traditional authority structures . . . eventually all that is left to hold society together is that someday it may be your day to get yours.” — Nuhu Ribadu, Nigeria 1 Corruption is the abuse of public office for private or political gain. Electoral corruption is interference with…
