At this point, it looks like someone is trying to reinvent the wheel, said Māris Zviedris, Chair of the Riga City Election Commission, in an interview on TV3’s “900 Seconds” when asked to comment on the problems encountered during the election process so far.
He acknowledged that the issues are mostly felt by polling station workers rather than the voters themselves. However, in his opinion, there were fewer and different problems during previous elections.
Zviedris admitted he is worried about what might happen on Saturday, when the highest voter turnout is expected. While there is a Plan B in place, it already causes inconvenience not only for staff but also for voters.
At the same time, he praised the State Agency for Digital Affairs (VDAA), noting that improvements can be seen.
However, he admitted he has no confidence that there will be no disruptions on Saturday.
As reported, with almost daily technical issues during the municipal elections, more and more election participants and observers are criticizing the organizers and system providers – the Central Election Commission (CEC) and the VDAA.
Already on Monday – the first day of early voting – election commissions were unable to enter voter activity data due to a malfunction in the Election Information System. A similar issue occurred again on Wednesday evening.
In addition, on Wednesday evening, just as voter intake was supposed to begin, the Electronic Online Voter Registry failed. Initially, CEC’s spokesperson Andrejs Vaivars announced that an external threat to the election system had been detected, but later clarified that there was no external threat to the election process. Explaining the incident, it was stated that due to “an unprecedentedly high demand for the online voter registration service,” a security mechanism had been triggered, which blocked access to the registry.
Election commission staff told the LETA news agency that this explanation was odd, since access to the registry is restricted to a known group of users, meaning there shouldn’t have been such “unprecedented” demand.
Commission chairs interviewed by LETA did not hide their dissatisfaction. They are concerned about both the shaky operation of registries and systems, and the general unpreparedness of the organizers – systems haven’t been tested thoroughly enough, and known issues have not been fully resolved. Some even said that the current situation is a “mess” not seen in the past 20 years. Commissions are looking toward Saturday with concern, as it is the main election day expected to bring large voter turnout.
Some politicians have also expressed concern, but top officials have been slow to voice public criticism.
Meanwhile, CEC has blamed the problems on insufficient preparation by commission workers, a claim described as “a stab in the heart” by Jelgava District Election Commission Chair Inita Freiberga.
CEC Chair Kristīne Saulīte said this week that the commission is working in close coordination with the VDAA to ensure no further disruptions to the municipal election system occur in the coming days.
Baiba Kaškina, head of Latvia’s national cybersecurity agency “Cert.lv,” explained on Friday that the system in question is a new one, developed specifically for these elections, meaning it had not previously been used in an actual election process. Although “Cert.lv” had tested the system thoroughly from a cybersecurity perspective and other tests had been carried out, some issues may not have been fully detected, she admitted.
Commenting on Wednesday’s misunderstanding – when the CEC initially announced an external threat to the election system and later retracted the statement – Kaškina explained that it is often difficult to determine whether incoming requests are a cyberattack or simply a high volume of legitimate requests. “That was the main reason for the confusion,” she said.