The Hungarian election system is fair and legitimate and will be suitable for more than eight million voters to „express their opinion” on Sunday, Minister of State heading the Prime Minister’s Office János Lázár said at a press briefing on Tuesday.

The Minister of State said that the number of individual candidates has increased from 810 in 2010 to 1554 by 2014, attributing the rise in part to the more transparent, controllable, legitimate and democratic nomination system.

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The Minister of State noted that there are currently 8.22 million eligible voters in the registry, including eight million with a permanent address in Hungary. Electors can vote in 10,386 election districts, in which a total of 39,481 members of the public delegated by independent nominating organisations will monitor the legality of the elections, he added.

He mentioned that the deviation from the norm within an electoral district should be no more than fifteen percent, meaning districts may be subject to future revision in light of demographic changes. 

The Minister of State also referred to the findings of the National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information according to which the present nomination system has eliminated the faults of the previous one, as a result of which the number of reports of abuse have decreased by several orders of magnitude.

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According to the Minister of State, the transparency of campaign financing has also improved, in addition to which he stressed that this year thirteen nationalities will also be able to vote for their own candidates for the first time.

The Minister of State underlined the fact that the Venice Commission considers the new legislation related to the elections democratic. 

Minister of Interior Sándor Pintér said Hungary is preparing calmly for the election, as reflected by the low number of election-related complaints received, totalling only 120 compared to 250 in the same period of 2010.

(Prime Minister’s Office)