A number of Lithuanian citizens who live in Portugal have complained that they could not vote in the general elections because they did not receive their ballot papers in time.
Dozens Lithuanians in Portugal who had registered to vote only received the ballots after Sunday’s vote.
For their ballots to count, they should have been stamped by Sunday at the latest.
“I only received them today, this morning,” Ernesta Žukauskaitė told LRT TV on Tuesday. “The other Portuguese Lithuanians, who are actively angry, received it yesterday.”
“It’s almost like lottery. Those who did receive [the ballot] in time are uniquely lucky,” she added.
Lina Petronienė, head of the Central Electoral Commission (VRK), notes that ballot papers to citizens in Portugal were distributed via the Lithuanian embassy in Madrid. They were late because the letters got stuck in the Spanish post.
“Probably because of the post, it is likely that some of the ballot papers arrived much later, not immediately after they were taken to the post office,” she told LRT TV.
Lithuanian diplomats have lodged a complaint with the Spanish post.
Expatriate citizens vote in the World Lithuanian constituency to elect their representative in the parliament. The VRK will count all mail-in ballots that will have come in by Friday.
According to preliminary results, however, conservative Dalia Asanavičiūtė won the Lithuanian World constituency seat with 49.10 percent of the vote. The leader of the liberal Freedom Party, Aušrinė Armonaitė, received 45.94 percent.
VRK chairwoman Petronienė suggests that in order to avoid similar problems in the future, Lithuanian lawmakers could change the election law and have the second round of voting three instead of two weeks after the first one. Alternatively, the VRK could send ballot papers for both rounds at the same time, even though this could cause confusion since only two leading candidates from the first round advance to the run-off.
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