There are of course, other ways to win elections including intimidation of voters, gerrymandering, fiddling electoral rolls, booth-capturing and other creative forms of rigging.
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain a Public Interest Litigation, questioning the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines and seeking a direction to the Election Commission to withhold using them till the machines are made tamper proof.
Talking to reporters for the first time after the NDA's victory, Kumar, who is set for yet another term in office, said the date for his swearing-in ceremony will be discussed at an 'informal' meeting of all the four NDA constituents on Friday.
"This farcical election is unacceptable to BNP," Zia told reporters just after midnight and claimed that she had evidence of rampant vote-rigging and that the high figures given by the Election Commission for voter turnout were false
'There will be very strong interest in cooperating with India under any future American administration, but on the margins India will need to be careful not to tip its hand regarding the election.'
Asserting that there will be no further delay in the February 18 parliamentary elections in the country, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf rejected the allegations of pre-poll rigging and setting up ghost polling stations.
Over 1.03 crore voters will decide the political fate of 306 candidates in this phase.
District Collector Alok Ranjan Ghosh said that the Sector Officer Awadesh Singh's driver had expressed his desire to vote. According to a primary reply by the officer, he had taken the EVM machine and VVPAT into a private hotel. A formal reply by the Sector Officer is awaited.
With the political crisis in Pakistan taking a violent turn, the Supreme Court on Monday offered to assist in ending the ongoing impasse between protesters and the Nawaz Sharif government.
'If tempers all over the country are so fragile that they can be lost because a couple of film stars give their child the same name as a 14th-century warlord, exactly what sort of compromises can be palatable,' asks Mihir S Sharma.
The EC has deployed 580 companies of central forces to man over 98 per cent of the polling booths in these constituencies to ensure free and fair polling.
Pakistan's largest city and business hub was paralysed on Friday on a strike call given by Imran Khan's party as part of its countrywide protests against the Nawaz Sharif government for allegedly rigging last year's polls.
Pakistan's Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on Wednesday hauled up the country's intelligence agencies for involvement in activities that were not part of their mandate. Chaudhry made the remarks as a three-judge bench resumed hearing a petition filed by former air force chief Asghar Khan against the funding of politicians by the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence to rig the 1990 general election.
Iran's maverick President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a known United States-basher, has been re-elected, a BBC report has said.
According to various claims, from 2,000 to 10,000 people had gathered at the rally in the biggest mass protest over a decade, carrying placards that read 'Down with the Party of Swindlers and Thieves!'.
The Pak PM said he told the UN that it was its resolution on Kashmir and not that of Pakistan therefore it was the body's duty to implement it.
It would be realistic to see India's position on the DGMOs joint statement more as 'engagement, different from dialogue', where our subsequent options could be decided depending on the realities of the situation on the ground, notes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
Will he take Modi's 'sab ka saath, sab ka vikas' route? Or will he turn UP into Egypt under Morsi, asks Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Talking to rediff.com from Jammu, Abdullah said that this was a remote possibility unless the Congress decides to rig the elections. "The United Progressive Alliance government had assured us that it would hold free and fair elections which is the right of the people. If this is denied to the electorate then the government is going back on its words," he said.
Belarusian athlete Tsimanouskaya, 24, had been due to compete in the women's 200 metre heats on Monday but said that on Sunday she was taken to the airport to board a Turkish Airlines flight.
Polling in Rajarajeswari Nagar constituency has been deferred to May 28.
Fresh controversy erupted after Pakistan's powerful Army Chief met Premier Nawaz Sharif on Monday to discuss ways to resolve the deepening political crisis with media reports claiming that the embattled prime minister was advised to step down during the meeting.
Washington might occasionally make some noises about alleged human rights violations and related issues but commonality of interests will only see the Indo-US ties grow stronger, observes Virendra Kapoor.
He also lamented that EVMs are being used as a 'football' and some sections are doing a 'motivated slugfest' over their use.
With a view to a hold free and fair Lok Sabha polls in Bihar, the Election Commission has decided to depute micro-observers at all booths in the state, official sources said on Friday. Bihar is known for its poll violence and rigging for decades now.
'There is no point in just saying, 'hum wapas bhej denge (we will send Kashmiri Pandits back)'.'
Former Lok Sabha speaker and Nationalist Congress Party leader Purno A Sangma on Thursday flayed the Centre's decision to impose President's rule in Nagaland and termed it as a ploy to rig the ensuing assembly election.
President Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party on Monday won a big majority in Russia's election.
The manifesto also commits Labour to constitute a judge-led inquiry into Britain's "injustices of the past", including a public review of the country's role in Operation Blue Star -- referred to as the "Amritsar massacre".
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has warned Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf that failure to reach an agreement with her could lead to a people's uprising in the country.
'The army has neither any role in the country's electoral process nor has it any desire to do so,' he said.
Sensing victory six days ahead of the elections, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has urged his supporters to go out and vote and "not blow up" the new momentum his campaign has gained after the FBI's decision to re-open investigation in the alleged email scandal of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Togadia said he would go on an indefinite fast from Tuesday to push the Hindutva cause.
They alleged that free and fair polls were not possible under the present caretaker government.
The Aam Admi Party on Wednesday complained to the Election Commission that several booths in Amethi in UP have been captured, but the poll panel found the charge to be unfounded after verification and said voting there was progressing peacefully.
Azadi Square in central Iran witnessed the country's biggest protest in over three decades when thousands turned up to condemsn the alleged rigging of the recent presidential elections.
Varanasi, the high-profile election battleground that goes to polls on Monday has virtually turned into a fortress.
Whatever happens with this election, there is going to have to be a serious rethink of how the ECI, and elections, are run in India. There can't even be the whiff of impropriety. In a country that believes in democracy, EVM rigging isn't stealing an election, it's stealing the soul of a nation, says Cleo Paskal.
Stones were pelted and two vehicles were burnt by miscreants who were allegedly trying to rig the process. Shahnawaz Akhtar reports.
Nearly 70 percent voters cast their franchise in Sri Lanka's first post-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam presidential election on Tuesday, expected to be a close finish between incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa and his main challenger General Sarath Fonseka.
