Central Election Commission: polling station staff to be paid for hours spent waiting to start the vote count
Latvia's Central Election Commission says polling station workers at the 15th Saeima election must be paid for all hours actually worked, including time spent waiting for the vote count to begin. Municipal election commissions approve and make the payments.
Latvia's Central Election Commission (CVK), the body that organises elections in the country, has clarified that staff of polling station commissions at the 15th Saeima (parliament) election must be paid for all the time they actually worked. This includes hours spent waiting for the vote count to begin. The question arose because counting was delayed at some polling stations on election night, and workers went home only around sunrise.
What the CVK decided
Following an order from the CVK chair, on the morning of Monday, 5 October all municipal election commissions were informed that polling station staff must be paid according to the number of hours actually worked. Time spent waiting for the count to start therefore has to be included in working-time records.
According to the CVK, most municipal commissions can cover these payments within the budget already allocated. If the money is insufficient, a municipal commission must agree changes to its cost estimate with the CVK and submit a justification. Additional funding is provided for such cases.
How payment works
Time sheets for polling station commissions are approved by municipal election commissions, which also pay the staff. Polling station workers must therefore first compile their time sheets and submit them to their municipal commission. If the CVK learns that a municipal commission is unjustifiably refusing to approve an estimate despite documented, actually worked time, it will request an explanation and urge the commission to pay for the work done.
How long was the wait?
The CVK has not yet compiled statistics on how long staff at different polling stations had to wait before counting could start. It notes that the nature of the count itself must be taken into account: at stations where work never stopped, staff had to check carefully that each voter was credited with only one ballot. The CVK stresses that this is a painstaking process in which accuracy matters more than speed.
