Pavel Burian posts - Czech Points

Pavel Burian

February 2, 2018 Politics

Court to Rule on Complaints of Presidential Election Fraud

Court to Rule on Complaints of Presidential Election Fraud - Czech Points

Part of the complaints about the presidential election, in which Miloš Zeman defeated Jiří Drahoš in the second round, have already been rejected by the Supreme Administrative Court (NSS). Some for their early submission, according to the court database. The seven-day complaint deadline began on January 31 and ends on February 6. The court has registered about two dozen, so far has refused five.

The Early Filing Court refused, for example, a voter’s complaint from Velvard in Kladensko , which gave an impulse to investigate the influence of the election by the mayor. The complaint was delivered on January 30th.

The voter from Prague delivered his complaint to the court three days earlier,proposing to state the invalidity of part of the election without further justification. His proposal was rejected by the court for early delivery.

Among the early complaints was the voter’s impetus, which, according to his words, made a ticket for Karel Habsburg in the presidential election. But the Commission does not record any invalid voices in its district. He sought to recount the votes  or re-vote in the district. He had dismissed his complaint earlier.

The NSS also refused to submit a voter who complained that the first day of the second round of elections had a ballot of one of the candidates in the mailbox. He thinks that the leaflets of any of the candidates on the day of the election should not be fed into boxes.

The NSS dismissed its complaint, among other things, because it named its proposal as a complaint for a violation of the electoral law , and no proposal other than a petition for invalid election of the president could be filed.

The NSS does not publish the content or the complainant in advance. The court activist Tomáš Pecin, for example, has turned to the court, making his proposal for repeating the elections available on the blog. Pecina points out that the Ministry of the Interior has allowed the registration of presidential candidates with multiple signatures of the legislators. The NSS is out of the elections, despite criticizing the legal opinion of the interior.

The complainant of Terezie Holovská’s complaint, an unregistered candidate for the post of head of state, then did not give the court the right to challenge the registration of other candidates when it did not help to register itself. Already before the election, Holovska herself announced the submission of a new complaint due to the multiple signatures.

The election was won by Milos Zeman, in the second round defeating Jiří Drahoš. The doubts about the multiple signatures concerned Petr Hannig, Mark Hilser, Jiří Hynek, Vratislav Kulhánek and Mirek Topolánek.

The result of the election was officially announced in the Collection of Laws on Tuesday, 30 January. The seven-day deadline began on January 31, ending on Tuesday 6 February at 4 pm. The Supreme Administrative Court must then decide within 15 days.

Five years ago, NSS received 109 complaints. Nothing passed despite having found at least three unlawful actions in the campaign. But the judges could not influence the overall election result. A voter’s complaint can be made by every voter, candidate or draftsman.