Defeated Hungarian Opposition Complains About Vote-by-Mail Without Voter ID

The defeated Hungarian opposition is complaining about Hungary’s vote-by-mail procedures after conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orbán won a fourth consecutive term on Sunday, citing the potential for voter fraud in postal voting.

As Breitbart News reported, Orban declared victory over a variety of liberal opponents, including left-wing billionaire George Soros, who had teamed up with a coalition of opposition parties in an attempt to push Orbán out of office.

The liberal-aligned opposition has been complaining about vote-by-mail, which liberals champion in the United States, even demanding that all postal votes be destroyed, according to Hungary Today:

In recent days, there have been a number of reports in the press highlighting problems with postal votes cast abroad. The most shocking case occurred in Transylvania, where a bag of partially burnt ballot papers was found next to an illegal garbage dump, all supporting opposition parties. The incident reignited the decade-old debate over the system of postal votes. Just a few days before the 2022 elections, the opposition alliance’s PM candidate, Péter Márki-Zay, even suggested that all postal votes should be destroyed. Meanwhile, the ruling Fidesz party is calling the incident a staged move by the opposition.

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The Orbán government decided in 2010 to introduce a new, simplified naturalization procedure for ethnic Hungarians living outside Hungary’s borders. The new system’s chief beneficiaries were the about 2.2 million persons of Hungarian ethnicity mainly living in the Carpathian Basin who had not qualified for dual citizenship before. Following the Orbán government’s decision, ethnic Hungarians were also granted voting rights in 2012. Since ethnic Hungarian citizens living outside of Hungary, mostly in regions surrounding the country – have no Hungarian residency, they can only cast their votes to the party list, not for individual candidates. Another important distinction is that they can cast their ballots by post without having to travel to an embassy.

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In addition, many critics are concerned about the technical rules on postal voting which, according to them, do not provide sufficient guarantees to prevent election fraud. The extent to which the Hungarian postal voting system is not fraud-proof has been evidenced by recent Hungarian press reports as well.

The Wall Street Journal noted Monday that the European Union is also considering cutting funds to Hungary over concerns that its vote-by-mail rules do not include voter identification: “In Brussels, the EU has been weighing whether to cut funding for Hungary. European lawmakers have argued that Mr. Orban has used his majority in parliament to rewrite election laws, redraw voting districts, and permit mail-in ballots without identity verification from communities that favor him.”

Complaints about potential fraud in vote-by-mail are routinely dismissed by the liberal allies of the Hungarian opposition in the United States.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.