On Tuesday, 15 September 2020, the Central Election Commission (CEC) ordered the Riga City Election Commission to organise and control the recount of votes in the Riga City Council election in three Riga polling stations – No. 74, 97 and 144.
The CEC thus complied with the judgments of the Administrative District Court of 14 and 15 September, which entrusted the CEC with the task of ensuring the recount of votes in those stations, adding the previously recognised as invalid ballot envelopes to the total electoral results.
The recount of votes should be carried out by the commissions of the Riga City polling stations No. 74, 97 and 144 by 17 September. The polling station commissions have been tasked with organising a vote-counting session, opening packages with invalid envelopes, which had been declared invalid due to a violation of the regulatory enactments allowed by the polling station commission, opening these envelopes and determining their content. The polling station commissions should count the votes from these envelopes in accordance with the order specified in the City Council and Municipality Council Election Law and in the CEC Instruction for Ballot Counting, as well as prepare the new minutes of vote counting. The new election results in the polling stations after adding the votes will be published on the CEC website https://rd2020.cvk.lv/pub/velesanu-rezultati.
The Riga City Election Commission should draw up the new minutes of the results of the Riga City Council elections of 29 August 2020 on the basis of the new minutes of vote counting not later than on the next day after receiving the minutes from polling stations, and make a new decision on the approval of the election results. According to the court's judgments, this decision may not be appealed because it will be taken within the framework of enforcement.
The Riga City Election Commission has a duty to inform immediately the submitters of all candidate lists in the Riga City Council election of 29 August 2020 about a place and time when the vote recount will be held. The recount of votes can be observed by authorised observers from the lists of candidates registered for the Riga City Council election and representatives of the mass media.
In the Riga City Council elections of 29 August this year, a total of 627 ballot envelopes without the polling station stamp were found in the ballot boxes of the polling stations No. 97 and 144. As well, 34 envelopes marked as “Early voting” were found in the ballot box of the election day at the polling station No. 74.
According to The City Council and Municipality Council Election Law, the ballot envelopes, which have not been stamped with the stamp of the relevant polling station commission, shall be deemed invalid. The ballot counting instruction states that the ballot envelopes with the mark “Early voting” cast into the ballot box on the election day shall be deemed invalid, too. The election law also stipulates that invalid ballot envelopes shall be counted and packaged unopened, indicating that the package contains invalid ballot envelopes and the number of such envelopes.
In an in-depth assessment of the circumstances of the situation, hearing witnesses and representatives of the State Security Service, the court did not find abusive action by members of the polling station commissions or third parties in relation to the use of unsealed and incorrectly stamped ballot envelopes in the polling stations. The Court therefore decided that, in this case, priority should be given to the ensuring of voting rights, the invalidated ballot envelopes should be equivalent to valid ballot envelopes, and accordingly the votes cast in those envelopes should accordingly be taken into account in the counting of votes.
CEC Information Department
Tel. +371 67814900, +371 20237331