Breaking: Budapest mayoral election votes to be recounted
Hungary’s Supreme Court, the Kúria, has ordered a recount of all votes cast in last month’s election for Budapest mayor, a decision posted on the Kúria website showed on Sunday.
In line with the ruling which partially amended an earlier decision by the National Election Committee, all votes submitted at the mayoral election must be re-examined and recounted, and the results of the election announced based on the recount.
The Kúria ruling cannot be appealed.
The Constitutional Court on Friday scrapped as unconstitutional a June 26 ruling by the Kúria, which had okayed the results of the June 9 mayoral election in Budapest and ordered the Kúria to make a new decision.
Karácsony reaction
Gergely Karácsony reacted on Facebook:
So this is what happens when constitutional judges, in order to meet perceived or real political demands, recount the valid votes in the election for mayor on the spot. The judges of the Kúria, understandably enough, did not want to assist in this and did not want to recount the 782 thousand valid ballot papers in forty degrees in eight days themselves, but rather assigned this task to the National Electoral Commission without any legal basis. The NEC has six days to recount thirty-two times as many ballot papers as it had last time, when it recounted the invalid ballots in one day. One can only hope that chaos will not break out.
But let there be a recount. But that requires strong guarantees. It must not happen again that a sealed ballot box or storage box is opened without the presence of opposition election committee members. It must not happen again that ballot boxes or ballot papers are transported around the city without being checked. Otherwise it could happen again, as happened last time, that under unclear circumstances two and a half times as many new Vitey voters were found in the Fidesz districts as in the opposition districts in terms of the number of invalid votes.
For me, the only fair recount process that is acceptable is that the ballot boxes and ballot papers are not opened and transported to the headquarters of the National Election Office in who knows how, but that members of the National Election Committee go to the ballot boxes guarded in the district election offices, where the elected and delegated members, with the help of civil servants, but in public view of the press, open the ballot boxes and bundles themselves and carry out the recount. Members of the electoral offices may, by law, assist in the recount, but the recount itself must be carried out by the electoral commission, which is composed of members of all the parliamentary parties.
I will interpret any other solution as an attempt at electoral fraud!
Vitézy reaction
Dávid Vitézy reacted on Facebook:
Today, the Kúria decided in favour of a full recount of the votes in the election of the Lord Mayor. Nobody knows what the outcome of the process will be, but it could be that the gap between Gergely Karácsony and us will eventually increase, and it could also decrease. But I do know one thing: in any developed democracy, such a close result (41 votes, a difference of 0.005%, or five hundred thousandths of a point) and the very high margin of error in the award of invalid votes already recounted (2.3%) would lead to a full recount. This is what should happen in Budapest – of course, it would have been nice if it had not required so many appeal steps and so much time.
György Magyar, a lawyer and chairman of the Civil Election Committee, which also conducted the opposition primaries, writes in a recent blog post:
“(…) A fair result – even if it entails extra work and costs – can only be established after a recount of all the votes.”
I agree with him wholeheartedly. And now so does the Kúria.
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Featured image: depositphotos.com
Somebody who “wins” by 0.005% of the vote, be it Karacsony or Vitezy has no mandate. Karacsony should either invite Vitezy to form a unity administration or he should quit.
Let’s see what the recount turns up.
Typical Steiner, like last week, his “Demigod” – Victor Mihaly. Orban, being the “Pigeon Carry” of Putins “message – visiting and meeting with the Ukraine President, and telling him, that CAPITULATION – was the way forward for the Ukraine, to bring the Russian War on them to a place of “moving” on.
Orban – 48 hours after meeting with the President of the Ukraine, arrives in Moscow, to meet with his ‘Mate” – Vladimir Putin, and surprise surprise – the word “out of ” Putins mouth – CAPITULATION.
“Lets see what the recount turns up” – Michael Steiner, you can be assured, the “eyes of Hungary” will be watching, to be assured, the Party of your Membership – Fidesz, have NO ability to INTERFEAR cause corruption, commit Acts of CRIME, in this recount process.
History of your Fidesz Party – as manipulators, the “abuse” or “mis-use” of Law, there “defiance to Comply, and “other” – they will, as they continue to CRUMBLE as a Political Party in Hungary, that FACT’s of there CONDUCT continue to mount in evidence exhibiting there “rotted” CULTURE – they will be RIGHTFULLY watched.