Opposition Succeeds in Recruiting More than 20K Ballot Counters for Election

Hungary Today 2022.03.25.

The opposition has succeeded in recruiting more than 20,000 vote counters for the upcoming parliamentary elections. Previous elections have seen half of Hungary’s polling stations without opposition delegates, but now there will be at least two for each of them.

More than 27,700 people have registered as ballot counters on the website of ’20k22,’ a movement which, through the cooperation of the six parties of Hungary’s joint opposition, aims to have an equal representation of Fidesz and opposition-delegated volunteers in every electoral district around Hungary.

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Fact

In Hungary, ballot-counting committees consist of at least five members, three of whom are chosen by the representative body of local governments from among local voters who apply to join the committee. Other members are delegated by the parties running for election (up to a maximum of two members each per constituency). If this is not possible, the committees are supplemented by substitutes elected by the local government in order to meet the statutory number requirement.

The need for ensuring such representation arose after the 2018 elections when numerous counting committees had no opposition delegates. According to opposition parties, this opened the door to potential voter fraud. However, Fidesz-KDNP repeatedly denied such accusations.

In the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary elections, there will be more than 10,000 constituencies. This means at least two opposition ballot counters for every polling station.

Feauted photo illustration by Tamás Sóki/MTI