On Friday, 18 September, the Riga City Election Commission approved the new minutes of vote counting in the Riga City Council elections of 29 August 2020, prepared taking into account the results of the recount of votes at three polling stations of the Riga City.
Following the decision of the Administrative Regional Court, votes cast at three Riga City polling stations – No. 74, 97 and 144 – were recounted on 17 September this year, when ballot envelopes previously considered as invalid were opened and votes from these envelopes were added to the total election results.
After adding the votes cast in 661 previously considered invalid ballot envelopes to the results of the Riga City Council elections, the division of mandates between the candidates' lists and elected councillors remained unchanged, according to the recalculated election results.
In accordance with The City Council and Municipality Council Election Law, the new election results shall be published in the official publication “Latvijas Vēstnesis” no later than seven days after the elections. The Chairman of the Riga City Election Commission should invite the newly elected councillors to the first meeting of the City Council not earlier than 10 days and not later than 20 days after the announcement of the election results.
The five per cent electoral threshold has been overcome and the councillor mandates have been obtained by seven lists of candidates - "For Development/For!, "PROGRESSIVE" (Attīstībai/Par!, "PROGRESĪVIE"), "Harmony" the Social Democratic Party ("Saskaņa" sociāldemokrātiskā partija), the New UNITY (Jaunā VIENOTĪBA), the National Alliance "All For Latvia!"-"For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK", the Latvian Association of Regions (Nacionālā apvienība "Visu Latvijai!"-"Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK", Latvijas Reģionu Apvienība), Party "Honour to Serve Riga" (Partija "Gods kalpot Rīgai"),"Latvian Russian Union" ("Latvijas Krievu savienība") and the New Conservative Party (Jaunā konservatīvā partija). The final results of the elections to the Riga City Council and the elected councillors can be found on the website of the Central Election Commission https://rd2020.cvk.lv/pub/ieveletie-deputati.
The Riga City Council elections were held on 29 August of this year. Three days before - from 26 to 28 August - voters could participate in early voting. 171,507 or 40.58% of voters cast their ballots in the elections. There were 422,681 citizens registered in the voter lists for the Riga City Council elections. 21.34% of the electorate voted on the election day, while 19.24% of the voters participated in early voting. 1,327 voters voted at their place of residence in Riga.
In the Riga City Council elections, 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, Therefore, the four lists of candidates contested in court the results of the elections.
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 vote 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 be taken into account in determining the results of the elections.
CEC Information Department
Tel. +371 67814900, +371 20237331