Latvia's election chief: some voters cast ballots multiple times
Counting of votes in Latvia's 15th Saeima election was delayed overnight on Saturday because officials had to verify that no single ballot was counted twice, after the election commission head revealed some voters had shown up to vote more than three times.
Māris Zviedris, head of Latvia's Central Election Commission (CVK), told media overnight on Saturday that several voters in this election had attempted to cast their ballots an unusually high number of times — more than three, by his account. He noted that law enforcement services had taken an interest in such cases.
Zviedris explained that the need to verify these cases was the main reason the vote count was delayed. Polling station staff needed extra time to make sure no single vote was counted more than once.
How the safeguard works
Asked why ballots submitted on Saturday couldn't be counted sooner, Zviedris pointed to current procedure, which requires that the box containing registration envelopes be opened first. He explained that when a person votes, the ballot paper is placed into a voting envelope, which is then placed inside a registration envelope marked with the voter's name, surname and a sequence number. This allows officials to later check whether a given voter had voted more than once.
After that check, the registration envelopes are opened, while the voting envelopes are separated and mixed in with the rest, making it impossible to determine how any individual voter cast their ballot. If a voter is found to have voted twice, the earlier submitted vote is discarded. Zviedris added that this system had previously worked smoothly.
The CVK chief said he expected results for party vote totals in the 15th Saeima election to be known around 4 a.m. He also suggested that in the future Latvia could abolish advance deposit-voting altogether, while proposing amendments to the relevant article of the Constitution and introducing an early voting arrangement instead.
