Election commission head names two options to speed up future vote counts
After delays in counting votes in the 15th Saeima election, Central Election Commission head Māris Zviedris proposed two possible fixes for future elections.
At a press conference held overnight into Sunday, October 4, the head of Latvia's Central Election Commission (CVK), Māris Zviedris, explained why vote counting in the 15th Saeima election took longer than expected and stretched late into the night.
According to Zviedris, the main cause of the delay was the need to carefully check for and identify ballots that had been cast more than once. Sorting out these duplicate submissions took extra time and slowed down the overall tallying of results.
Two possible fixes
To prevent a similar bottleneck in future elections and make the counting process run more smoothly, Zviedris outlined two possible solutions.
The first option would be to do away with the practice of depositing a ballot for safekeeping as part of the current voting procedure. The second, more complex option would require amending the Satversme, Latvia's constitution, to formally permit advance voting.
Zviedris did not say at the press conference which of the two options the commission considers preferable, or which change might be easier to implement. He did stress, however, that some form of change is needed to avoid similar delays in vote counting and the announcement of results to voters in future elections.
