All Polling Stations But One Now Closed

Bratislava, March 5 (TASR) – Almost all polling stations for the Parliamentary election on Saturday in Slovakia closed at 10 p.m. The only exception is at municipal hall in Chorvatsky Grob (Bratislava region), which will close at 10.15 p.m. as it was open on 7.15 a.m.

The campaign and polling moratorium ended as of 10 p.m., despite that one open polling station. Also, exit polls can be published now.

Votes are being counted in closed polling stations. First preliminary results are to be known at approximately at 10.40 p.m. Preliminary results will be published on the website www.volbysr.sk. Definite results will be published by the Slovak Statistics Office immediately after being approved by the State Electoral Commission.

Commissions at election wards as well the state commission had to look into several complaints during election day. People felt that ballot boxes were not marked clearly enough, saying it was hard to distinguish between them and boxes for unused election ballots. According to the State Electoral Commission chair Eva Chmelova, in some places there were missing samples of election ballots. Voters in some locations complained, too, about bad behaviour from workers at the polling stations.

Dozens of complaints over breaching the campaign moratorium have arrived at the commission. “Some of them look like as if the commission will have to look into them because they are able to be documented,” said Chmelova, adding that those breaching the moratorium face fines or sanctions.

After 10 p.m. the state commission also started to count votes from Slovak citizens that don’t have permanent residence in Slovakia. A total of 1,049 envelopes arrived at the commission. Also the commission will wait for reports from district commissions.

Official results will be announced on Sunday at a press conference.