Steven N.
Voting began at 6:00am on Sunday morning in Hungary’s 10,243 electoral districts for the 2022 parliamentary election and national referendum. Around 7.7 million eligible voters will have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote for their elected representatives before polls close at 7:00pm local time.
Voting can only be done in person. Voters must be able to prove their identity, which can be done with any type of official ID, as well as their address and personal identification number.
All voters have been informed of the designated polling location, and will have to cast their vote there unless they previously registered that they would not to be present at their place of residence on election day. This year, there are around 158,000 of these “transfer voters.”
Only voters already on the official voting registry at their designated polling station will be given a ballot, as names cannot be added to the registry on Sunday. Those who are sick or otherwise incapacitated can request that the ballot box be delivered to their home so they can also take part in the election, but the voter must have registered for this in advance.
Out of Hungary’s 7.7 eligible voters, more than 231,000 young Hungarians will be able to vote for the first time. This group comprises those who were too young for 2019’s municipal elections but have since become eligible.
The National Election Office (NVI) is providing information on turnout data at seven times throughout the course of the day: at 7:00am, 9:00am, 11:00am, 1:00pm, 3:00pm, 5:00pm, and 6:30pm.
The ballot counting committees will first tally together the votes for the parliamentary election, with preliminary results to be released on www.valasztas.hu shortly after the polling stations close. More complete results are expected to appear on the site at around 11:00pm, after most of the results have been processed.
[Népszava][Photo: hungarianpolitics.com]
