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Article 67
 

Postal Voting


1. Postal voting shall be possible for voters who are in institutions of healthcare (with the exception of outpatient healthcare institutions), social care or guardianship because of their health condition or age, or who perform mandatory military service and therefore are unable to come to a polling district to vote, or who perform active military service, civil service or work under the employment contract in international military operations abroad, or who serve arrest or imprisonment sentence, or are placed in arrest houses, remand prisons (detention facilities). Postal voting shall be possible at post offices set specially for postal voting (hereinafter referred to as “special post offices”) during their business hours on a last Wednesday, Thursday or Friday before an election day. Postal voting in military units located abroad shall be conducted in accordance with the procedure laid down by the Central Electoral Commission on the recommendation of the Ministry of National Defence. Expenses related to postal voting shall be covered with the funds of the State Budget.


2. The head of the post office shall be responsible for the organisation of postal voting. The chairman of the electoral committee of the polling district within the territory of which a post office is situated shall be responsible for the organisation of the supervision of the work of that post office during postal voting. He shall, in conjunction with the chairmen of other polling district electoral committees whom the constituency electoral committee has assigned with such a task, organise electoral committee members’ participation during voting in special post offices. Commanders of the military units located abroad shall be responsible for organisation of postal voting in those units.


3. The head of the post office, with the consent of the constituency electoral committee, shall appoint postal workers for the issue and collection of ballot papers and postal voting envelopes during postal voting, who are entrusted with work with the election documents. If the constituency electoral committee requests so, the head of the post office must remove a postal worker from the work with election documents. Postal workers who are authorised to issue and collect election papers shall be issued by the constituency electoral committee with the certificates of the established form. A postal worker who does not have such certificate shall not have the right to issue and collect election papers. An electoral committee member, election observer, who has produced his certificate to the postal worker, a voter, who has produced the poll card and the document proving his identity, shall have the right to write down his remark in the said certificate. The head of the post office shall immediately notify the constituency electoral committee about this remark.


4. In the sites specified in Articles 69, 70, 71, 72, and 73 of this Law there must be a room (a place) where the voter can, without interference and in secrecy, mark the ballot papers and put them into the postal voting envelopes. In these cases voting may be observed by election observers who have the election observer’s certificate permitting to observe elections in any polling district.


5. The postal worker shall issue election documents to a voter in accordance with the procedure established by the Central Electoral Commission. Together with ballot papers, voters shall be given postal voting envelopes. A return envelope shall be addressed by the postal worker to the polling district electoral committee which is indicated in the poll card of the person. When voting by post, during early voting or voting at home, a poll card shall be marked with the information about the handing of the ballot papers and the poll card shall be returned to the voter.


6. Voting in secrecy, the voter shall himself:


1) mark the ballot papers;
2) put the marked ballot papers into the ballot paper envelope;
3) seal the ballot paper envelope;
4) put the ballot paper envelope into the return envelope together with the poll card;
5) seal the return envelope.


7. The sealed return envelope (with the poll card, ballot paper envelope and ballot papers in it) the voter shall hand to a postal worker. Upon having received the envelope handed by the voter, the postal worker shall seal it with a special mark in the voter’s presence and shall give the voter a receipt confirming the acceptance of this envelope.


8. Actions referred to in paragraphs 6 and 7 of this Article shall be carried out by a voter himself. If because of the physical disability a voter is unable to carry out the said actions himself, at his request such actions shall be carried out by a person he chooses. This person must mark the ballot papers in the presence of the voter according to his instructions and preserve the secrecy of voting.


9. A postal worker shall be prohibited from carrying out for a voter the actions referred to in paragraphs 6 and 8 of this Article, as well as from accepting from the voter a return envelope which is not sealed. Voters shall be prohibited from taking out postal ballot papers, postal voting envelopes or handing them to other persons.