Top court rules prohibiting voters temporarily abroad from voting by mail constitutional

Budapest, April 20 (MTI) – The Constitutional Court on Wednesday ruled that prohibiting Hungarians staying abroad on the day of the elections from voting by mail is not against the Constitution.

Under the ruling, the clause in Hungary’s election law stipulating that citizens who have a permanent address in Hungary but stay abroad are required to vote at a foreign representation in person does not violate voting rights.

The court said that the rule may cause inconvenience to those concerned, but the “objective, constitutional and rational” reasoning behind it is that citizens who have registered addresses in Hungary have a more direct relationship with the state and can therefore be expected to cast their votes in person.

Under the election law, ethnic Hungarians living abroad without a permanent address in Hungary are allowed to cast their ballots by mail.

Altogether 128,378 mailed votes were counted in the 2014 election, with the incumbent Fidesz-KDNP alliance winning 95 percent of them. Fidesz-KDNP won a second consecutive two-thirds majority in parliament in the 2014 general elections.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters