Hungary: Orban implements new election law that mandates registering to vote

[Tender Branson]

Orbán Cements His Power With New Voting Law

By Keno Verseck



Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has used his party's two-thirds majority in parliament to pass a constitutional change that will force voters to register before elections. Opposition parties fear the move will boost his power and pave the way for election fraud, but they see no hope of appealing against it.

It rained blue paper in the Hungarian parliament in Budapest on Monday evening, when members of the green liberal party Politics Can Be Different (LMP) threw slips of paper at the government benches in a reference to the infamous "blue-ballot" rigged elections of August 1947. Back then, activists from the Hungarian Communist Party (MKP) exploited a system of blue chits to travel round casting votes in dozens of different places, allowing the MKP to gain a majority.

The Hungarian opposition fears a similar fraud might occur under Viktor Orbán's ultra-conservative nationalist government. His ruling Fidesz party (Alliance of Young Democrats) used its two-thirds majority in parliament to amend the constitution to allow citizens to vote in elections only if they register in advance either in person or electronically.

Paving the Way for Fraud

Opposition parties and activists see the move as an attempt to keep poorer voters who are unlikely to be Fidesz supporters away from the ballot boxes. They also accuse the government of paving the way for election fraud.

"By dispensing with the central register, the system of voter registration ushers in broad scope for fraud because it means multiple votes can scarcely be prevented," argues LMP politician Gergely Karácsony.

The lawmakers of Fidesz passed an amendment to the constitution that introduces voter registration. The actual law on voter registration is expected to be approved on November 12. Without this initial amendment, the Constitutional Court would most probably have rejected the new law.

The system foresees voters registering every four years either in person at their local authority or via the Internet, providing they have an electronic signature. Hungarians who live abroad, including the 3 million members of Hungarian minorities in Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine, who have been entitled to vote for a party list since 2010, can register by post. Registration has to be done at the latest two weeks ahead of the scheduled parliamentary elections and is then valid for four years in general and local elections, referendums and European parliamentary elections.

Heated Debate

The voter registration law has been the subject of heated debate for months. Along with opposition politicians, a number of lawyers and voting experts complain that it lacks any credible justification given that countries where the population must register to vote such as Britain and the US have no central register, whereas Hungary does.

Ahead of the vote, Antal Rogan, head of the Fidesz parliamentary group, said registration was necessary primarily because of Hungarians living abroad for whom there is no registration data in Hungary. Rogan rejected criticism of the constitutional amendment and pointed to longstanding democracies such as the US, where voters also have to register.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/hungarian-parliament-amends-election-law-a-864349.html

...

[DC Al Fine]

I don't get it. We've had a standing registration process in Canada for decades and ddemocracy has worked out ok.

[Franzl]

I don't get it. We've had a standing registration process in Canada for decades and ddemocracy has worked out ok.

What legitimate purpose does it serve to start with that in Hungary?

[You kip if you want to...]

Sounds mildly familiar

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Republicans want a lot more restrictive than this.

[DC Al Fine]

I don't get it. We've had a standing registration process in Canada for decades and ddemocracy has worked out ok.

What legitimate purpose does it serve to start with that in Hungary?

Presumably to prevent voter fraud.

[GMantis]

I don't get it. We've had a standing registration process in Canada for decades and ddemocracy has worked out ok.

What legitimate purpose does it serve to start with that in Hungary?

Presumably to prevent voter fraud.

They already have an election register and national ID cards, making most forms of voter fraud impossible.

[Simfan34]

The shock! The horror!

[DC Al Fine]

I don't get it. We've had a standing registration process in Canada for decades and ddemocracy has worked out ok.

What legitimate purpose does it serve to start with that in Hungary?

Fair enough.
Presumably to prevent voter fraud.

They already have an election register and national ID cards, making most forms of voter fraud impossible.

[Benj]

The shock! The horror!

It is pretty horrific. You're not understanding what's going on.  The current system is not like North Dakota. You don't just show up, say you're eligible, and they let you vote. In the current system, the Hungarian government keeps a list of all eligible voters. When you go to vote, you have to be on that list--but everyone is on the list, without any effort, because the government puts everyone eligible on there automatically.

The new system gets rid of that list for no reason whatsoever but to suppress non-Fidesz votes. Instead, they will create an entirely new list where voters have to explicitly sign up in order to vote. While a sign-up system is not entirely awful when compared to a North Dakota-like good faith system, there's no excuse whatsoever for instituting a sign-up system when you already have an automatic registration system. In addition, a sign-up system actually has more potential for fraud because it's relatively easy to fraudulently register false people when the public actively provides registrations instead of the government doing all the work (thus the occasional necessary purges of "Mickey Mouse" registrations from US voter registration lists). Why create an unnecessary extra barrier to voting?

[Tender Branson]

The Hungarian Constitutional Court has ruled Orban's voter registration law INVALID today.

Excellent news !

http://derstandard.at/1356426351042/Ungarisches-Verfassungsgericht-hebt-Waehlerregistrierungspflicht-auf

[Nhoj]

The Hungarian Constitutional Court has ruled Orban's voter registration law INVALID today.

Excellent news !

http://derstandard.at/1356426351042/Ungarisches-Verfassungsgericht-hebt-Waehlerregistrierungspflicht-auf

Somewhat surprising as I thought the court had a bunch of Fidesz guys on it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Hungarian Constitutional Court has ruled Orban's voter registration law INVALID today.

Excellent news !

http://derstandard.at/1356426351042/Ungarisches-Verfassungsgericht-hebt-Waehlerregistrierungspflicht-auf

Somewhat surprising as I thought the court had a bunch of Fidesz guys on it.

Indeed, very surprising... Has Orban gone too far even for their standards?

[Tender Branson]

Here's an English article:

Hungary Court Strikes Down Voter-Registration Legislation

Hungary’s Constitutional Court struck down legislation that would have led to mandatory voter registration, a requirement that the political opposition said infringed on basic rights.

The rule, attached to a new constitution introduced by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government this year, was discarded on “formal, procedural” grounds, according to a statement on the Budapest-based court’s website today. The court will review the content of the registration requirement in a separate inquiry, it said.

“Parliament, acting in its capacity to create a constitution, is also bound by procedural and legislative rules,” the court said. “Laws that break these guidelines are void.”

Opposition parties and civic groups had said mandatory registration would infringe on citizens’ fundamental rights and lead to a lower turnout favoring the ruling Fidesz party. Orban said the law would help avoid excluding hundreds of thousands of voters who live and work abroad.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-28/hungary-court-strikes-down-voter-registration-legislation.html

...

Apparently the court said that the Orban parliament overstepped their powers by changing the constitution this much ... hear, hear.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I've been uninformed about the Hungarian situation since leaving for college but based off of the few snippets of news and polls I've seen Fidesz looks increasingly besieged although they've been aided by the fact that the opposition from the left is splintered. The MSZP appears to lack any credibility. The plight of being the descendents of the old regime, I suppose.

[Nhoj]

I've been uninformed about the Hungarian situation since leaving for college but based off of the few snippets of news and polls I've seen Fidesz looks increasingly besieged although they've been aided by the fact that the opposition from the left is splintered. The MSZP appears to lack any credibility. The plight of being the descendents of the old regime, I suppose.

That and the part where their last PM went on about how he lied to the public.

[Tender Branson]

This is now official:

Hungary top court voids election law in blow to Orban

Hungary's constitutional court has struck down a controversial electoral law that critics said would have favoured the ruling party, Fidesz.

The court objected to a requirement that voters register no later than 15 days before polling day.

Some other provisions were also deemed to be unconstitutional.

The conservative party of PM Viktor Orban dominates parliament. Last year Fidesz changed some other laws amid EU pressure over democratic standards.

After Friday's court ruling the head of the party's parliamentary group, Antal Rogan, said the new voter registration system would not be introduced for the 2014 general election.

The new electoral law was adopted by parliament last November, but then President Janos Ader referred it to the constitutional court.

He also highlighted public concern about the law's provisions on election campaigning and advertising.

The court ruled that the law restricted voter rights to an unjustifiable degree, the Politics.hu news website reports.

The court objected to a proposal that political ads be restricted to the publicly run media, calling it a grave violation of freedom of speech.

The court also opposed proposed bans on cinemas screening political ads during the campaign and on the publication of any election-related opinion polls in the six days prior to election day.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20909038