Latvia’s Saeima election process is currently running “pleasantly smoothly”, although there have been some minor “hiccups within normal limits”, Central Election Commission (CVK) Chairman Māris Zviedris said in an interview with TV3 on Friday.
Asked to assess readiness for the election “technically and otherwise”, Zviedris rated the preparedness of the institutions involved, “excluding the technical side”, at nine out of ten. However, “technology is technology”, he said, and there can be no guarantee that it will work flawlessly.
Zviedris pledged that the CVK would do everything possible to ensure that no voter’s ballot is lost, regardless of any problems that may arise.
The CVK chairman is optimistic that voter turnout in this election could be relatively high,
as voters have been given extensive opportunities to cast their ballots both on election day and in advance.
Latvia’s Saeima election will take place tomorrow, while voters can still cast their ballots in advance today. So far, 115,836 people, or 7.44% of eligible voters, have already voted in the 15th Saeima election.
Ahead of the 14th Saeima election four years ago, ballots could be deposited for safekeeping on only three days and at a limited number of polling stations. At that time, around 63,300 voters, or 4.11% of all eligible voters, had cast their ballots before election day.
Overall turnout in the election that year reached 59.41% of eligible voters.