Court Orders Re-vote in Three NSW Councils After iVote Glitch

Three NSW council ballots will need to be re-run after a technical glitch with the iVote online voting system prevented some users from casting votes during last year’s local government elections.
The glitch was caused by unprecedented demand on the iVote system. NSW Supreme Court Justice Robert Beech-Jones declared the elections in the Kempsey, Singleton and the Shellharbour Ward A local government areas void on last Thursday.
As many as 34 votes were potentially missing in Kempsey, 55 in Singleton and 54 in Shellharbour Ward A.

Justice Beech-Jones said that although the number of missing votes was small, it was enough to affect the outcome of the elections.

He said the missing votes “exceeded the margin” between some elected candidates and unelected candidates, and some excluded candidates and some unexcluded candidates in various rounds of vote counting.
Anticipating the findings, the NSW Electoral Commission revealed last week that iVote will not be used at next year’s state general election.

The Electoral Commission is planning to work with representatives of iVote’s core users, including blind or vision impaired voters, to explore alternatives for voting.

- CyberBeat