WODONGA, Victoria, Australia–In a highly unusual development related to credit union board elections, one man here has been charged with fraudulent voting for allegedly hacking into a computer to change the results.
According to the Australian Securities and Investment Corp. (ASIC), Neil John Evans, 57, has been charged with fraudulent voting in the director elections at WAW CU.
ASIC is alleging that between Nov. 4-Nov. 18, 2015, WAW conducted elections to fill two vacant board positions. The voting took place electronically, with WAW members using their personal details to gain access to an online portal to cast votes.
ASIC alleges that Evans, a financial planner, misused the personal details of approximately 499 WAW members to gain access to the online voting portal and cast ballots in the election for two candidates without the authorization of those members. ASIC further alleges that Evans sourced those details from a list of WAW members he had obtained for the purposes of marketing his financial planning services.
According to ASIC, as a result, one person was improperly elected to the WAW board and another person who should have been elected was not.
Evans has been charged with one count of causing unauthorized modification to data held in a computer contrary to section 247C of the Victorian Crimes Act, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment.
ASIC said it does not believe anyone else was involved.
One of the individuals elected as the result of the alleged fraud, Timothy Frazer, resigned in December of 2017 as a director of WAW.