“When early voting begins in 2024 In the elections of the President of the Republic and the referendum on the amendment of Article 12 of the Constitution, gross violations of the implementation of these two different political campaigns were revealed – ballot papers for these two different political campaigns were issued to the voters to be signed by one signature”, E. Vaitkus states in a letter to the CEC.
“In this way, the voter’s right to choose whether or not to participate in these different political campaigns is unreasonably and unlawfully grossly violated.” The voter also has the right to choose to participate or not participate in each of these political campaigns, and the CEC’s procedure for issuing ballots to voters (…) violates this constitutional right of voters, forcing the voter to necessarily participate in both political campaigns,” he asserts.
In his appeal, the candidate also states that he has received reports from election observers that commission members working in the precincts and issuing ballots are persuading voters to leave ballots if they do not want to participate in any voting.
“In this way, without knowing what will be done with these ballots formally issued to the voter, but not actually received by the voter, there is an obvious threat of these ballots being used to falsify votes,” E. Vaitkus points out.
The candidate asks the CEC to change the procedure for issuing ballots and to oblige district election commissions to record ballots that voters refused to pick up in separate acts.
CEC spokesperson Indrė Ramanavičienė confirmed to Eltai that the commission received E. Vaitkaus’ appeal.
At the time, when it came to early voting, she argued that voters could choose not to participate in a referendum or a presidential election. She said that when the voter arrives to vote in advance, a pre-voting sheet is printed, which records in the CEC information system that the voter has arrived at the polling station, and indicates how he casts his vote.
“Regardless of whether the voter plans to take one or both ballots, this confirmation is necessary to ensure that the documents have been issued to that particular voter.” In other words, when the voter puts his signature at the pre-voting place, it is not the number of issued ballots that is recorded, but the very fact of issuing and receiving the documents,” explained the CEC representative.
Speaking about the turnout in the elections at that time, the CEC representative reminded that this number does not always coincide with the actual number of ballots found in the ballot boxes and early voting envelopes.
“Therefore, the exact number of voters who participated in the elections or referendum is determined only after counting all the received ballots”, pointed out I. Ramanavičienė.
ELTA reminds that the preliminary voting in the first round of the presidential election and the referendum on the preservation of citizenship ended on Thursday. Election commissions visit voters at home on Friday and Saturday. Disabled people, people who care for disabled people at home, people who are unable to work due to illness and voters aged 70 and over can vote at home.
The main election day is Sunday. Voters will be able to vote in any polling station – a total of 1,895 locations throughout Lithuania.
Regarding the position of the head of the country in 2024 8 candidates are competing in the presidential elections – Gitanas Nausėda, who is seeking a second term, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė nominated by the conservatives, representative of the Freedom Party, former chairman of the Constitutional Court (KT) Dainius Žalimas, independent candidates Ignas Vėgėlė and Eduardas Vaitkus, founder of the “Nemunos aušra” party Remigijus Žemaitaitis, Democrats Giedrimas Jeglinskas of the union “Vardan Lietuvos” and Andrius Mazuronis, chairman of the Labor Party.
At that time, in the referendum on dual citizenship, it was proposed to abandon the sentence currently written in the Constitution: “except for the individual cases provided for by law, no one can be a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania and another state at the same time”. This provision does not allow the preservation of Lithuanian citizenship after acquiring the citizenship of another state.
