25 November 2022

  • Having initially conceded defeat soon after the runoff election at the end of October, Jair Bolsonaro circled back around to lodge a challenge with the Brazilian Electoral Courts. However this challenge has now been rejected by the Brazilian Electoral Courts. In addition to the rejection, supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes fined the responsible parties USD $4.3m, sighting a refusal to provide any evidence to support their narrative as well as bad faith intentions.

  • Following up on the US midterm elections, an issue with voting machines in Mercer County, New Jersey, has been ruled a “miscommunication” following an investigation. A number of voting machines had experienced errors on the day of the election relating to compatibility between the machines and the printed ballots. The investigation concluded that this had been a miscommunication between Dominion Voting Systems and the company that prints the ballots. The error was detected between 7:30 and 8am and by 9am a backup plan had been implemented, with all affected ballots counted by hand.

  • Cambodia has been upgraded from a C to a B by the World Bank on its GovTech Maturity Index (GTMI). The index is formed by aggregating ratings across four areas (core government systems, public service delivery, digital citizen engagement and govtech enablers) and is intended to identify areas of improvement.

  • Finally, the South Korean Ministry of Science and ICT has announced the development of a blockchain-based voting system, as part of a plan to innovate public services. Blockchain technology will not only help secure voting records, but also help prevent possible forgery and tampering. The Ministry is planning to spend more than USD $1m this year and more in years to come.

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!