Latvia’s Central Election Commission (CVK) is one of the main institutions in charge of making sure a free, democratic and honest election process is organised. It is in the interest of Latvia’s society to have a well-managed election process, the State Audit reports.
In its audit of the annual account from CVK, State Audit concluded that the document does provide a clear and true account of the financial state of CVK and it was prepared in accordance with regulations. But there are certain areas on which the State Audit focused in its report.
State Audit council member Ilze Bādere: «Three months are left until 14th Saeima elections. However, what about the problems previously reported regarding the planning of the budget, organisation of procurements of equipment and adoption of the election management system? Have they been resolved? Unfortunately, not.»
«However, elections are a critically important moment for every democratic country. In this context – considering the capacity CVK – we can conclude there has been a lot of talk but not much action. We invite institutions to prevent problems with insufficient capacity in CVK and the problems caused by it for the organisation of the election process,» said Bādere.
Elections become more and more expensive
Until 2021 municipal elections CVK organised elections using software and support services from LLC SOAAR.
Between 2017 and 2020 CVK paid more than EUR 2.2 million for these services.
To prevent the risk of the election process being dependent on the services from a single business, in 2020 CVK commenced the purchase procedure of election management system’s modules. CVK planned to spend EUR 1.8 million on the purchase of the base and four election modules. A contract worth EUR 900 000 was signed for the purchase of the base and municipal modules. They were supplied in line with the budget and contract signed with LLC SOAAR, which was the sole contender in the procurement. However, during the procurement of those modules CVK faced a major increase of costs for the Saeima election module, the price of which went from EUR 363 000 to EUR 1.16 million.
It is expected that the cost of the procurement of the remaining two modules – European Parliament elections and referendum modules – will also exceed the expected EUR 544 000.
After acquiring all the necessary election management modules, it will be necessary to procure election support services. At the same time, this also means LLC SOAAR will be picked as the sole contender regardless since there is no competition or alternatives available on the market.
From this it can be concluded that the objective – acquire ownership over software for election management, prevent the risk of the election process being dependent on services of a single company – still has not been achieved, as noted in in the report.
Unjustified procurement of overly expensive service
In two of the contracts signed with LLC SOAAR for the management of municipal elections in 2021 a cost position to reduce the impact of Covid-19. As part of this cost position CVK paid for the equipping of remote workplaces of employees with professional equipment to promote work efficiency even though the service for which this equipment was procured lasted only three months.
Instead of renting necessary equipment or covering amortization expense, for example, CVK has paid for the purchase of new equipment in full. According to auditors, this has increased the costs by at least EUR 40 000.
It is necessary to enhance the capacity of CVK
In previous audits the State Audit had outlined multiple problems, the cause of which may lie in the insufficient capacity of CVK. For example, in budget planning auditors have observed a delayed reaction to in surveying necessary costs. This results in the finances provided by the state budget seeming insufficient.
The administrative and support functions at CVK are provided by 12 employees. CVK has stressed multiple times that it is the insufficient capacity that is the main reason for the aforementioned problems. Because the procurement of the election management system, development and maintenance will remain important in the future, the State Audit submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers and the Saeima recommendations for the most optimal solution to help develop this system.
No one responsible for election policy and promotion of voting activity
Despite the fact that participation in elections is going down in Latvia, with 2021 reaching the lowest point (only 34% of registered voters took part in municipal elections), the country still has no institution responsible for analysing voting activity and factors that influence it, as well as proposing activities to promote residents’ participation in elections. At the same time, CVK has information from surveys on the level of voters’ activity and satisfaction with the election process, etc.
State Audit intends to turn the parliament’s attention towards all this and will invite the government to consider institutions that could be put in charge of the country’s election policy and voting activity.