Voters in Slovak presidential elections won’t be able to vote by post, even after the new election rules currently being prepared by the Interior Ministry are introduced.
“There's a problem with the second round. There’s too little time [between the first and second rounds], it can’t be managed," Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák told the TASR newswire. Moreover, voters aren’t able to take part via electronic voting. Kaliňák said that he doesn’t intend to there isn’t enough interest in this form of voting to make it worthwhile.
“There’s a generation that would like to use the opportunity to vote via the internet, but it still isn’t numerous enough to make it worthwhile investing such an amount of money. If it appears that 90 percent of people are interested, we’ll certainly prepare the hardware," Kaliňák said.
The current law stipulates that Slovak citizens who have reached 18 years of age are permitted to vote in presidential elections. This also includes Slovaks without permanent residence in Slovakia, but the condition is that they must be present in Slovakia on the day of the presidential elections. The first round of the presidential elections is set to take place on March 15, while the potential run-off is scheduled for March 29.
The civic association of Slovaks living abroad launched a petition as of January 23 to introduce the possibility to vote from abroad. The goal of the petition is to get at least 50,000 signatures and deliver them to Slovak parliament. Organisers of the petition also want to enhance the pool of elections in which the vote can be cast also by expats. Slovaks living abroad are allowed to take part in parliamentary elections since 2006 – through the classical postal service.
(Source: TASR, SITA)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
