Political Capital: Serious abuses are possible in the Hungarian elections
According to Political Capital, electoral law needs to amend in several respects. The analyst company reports that if everything remains that way, fundamental rights are violated and serious abuses are possible. For example, deceased people will get letters and it cannot be controlled who votes and sends it back instead of them. The rules on restructuring of constituencies should also be modified, index.hu wrote.
Political Capital draws attention in connection with constituencies that the map should be re-drawn due to population movements, and therefore rules should be amended. By law, the population of constituencies cannot derivate from the average by 20% in any direction.
Already last year, 15% fewer people lived in four constituencies than the average (3 in Tolna county and one in Somogy), and 15% more people could vote in one (Pest 5th).
Voting by correspondence is only possible for citizens not having an address in Hungary, ie. for the Hungarians abroad. PC thinks there are more solutions to the residents abroad can vote the same way, like the extension of voting by correspondence or the full removal of it. Electronic voting could be also effective, but it is not so likely today.
One of the disadvantages of voting by correspondence is that you cannot verify who is voting. According to Political Capital, it is possible that anyone can send back the letter of a deceased person and the abuse will never be revealed. The analysts say a simple solution could be if National Election Office (NVI) asks the citizens to send back a document, and if they do, their registration will be reactivated, but only for the current election, index.hu wrote.
It makes difficult to look the campaigns transparently that, although parties start their campaigns months before the elections, the official campaign starts only fifty days before the selected date. That is, the parties do not have to report their spent millions before this period. It is also a problem that the parties can outsource the campaign to NGOs. OSCE previously named the posters of COF which clearly supported the campaign of Fidesz.
According to PC, a part of the rules regarding to the elections campaign should be extended beyond the campaign period.
In many cases, there are suspicions that candidates, political parties copied the signatories’ data and forged their signatures. That is why, Political Capital says, electoral commissions and offices should have more licenses and longer deadlines to eliminate frauds.
based on the article of index.hu
translated by BA
Source: http://index.hu