Richard Beran

In the past two years, when regional elections and elections to the Chamber of Deputies were held, the government came up with several measures to allow people infected with covid-19 to vote. These included the alternative method of drive-in voting, where the citizen could cast his vote from their car. But what about this year's regional and Senate elections?

The President of the Czech Republic, Miloš Zeman, pursuant to Article 63(1)(f), Article 16(2) and taking into account Article 17(1) of Constitutional Act No. 1/1993 Coll., the Constitution of the Czech Republic, and pursuant to Section 1(3) of Act No. 247/1995 Coll, on 13 April 2022, by decision[1] , announced the holding of elections to one-third of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic (1st round) on 23 and 24 September 2022. Furthermore, pursuant to Article 3(1) of Act No. 491/2001 Coll., on elections to municipal councils, the holding of elections to municipal councils was also announced on the same dates.

The Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic is elected according to the majority system in 81 districts. Voters choose between candidates nominated by political parties or either independent applicants. Each voter has only as many votes as there are senators, i.e. one. A candidate who receives more than 50% of the votes in the first round becomes a senator. If no candidate receives this amount, a second round is held, where the two candidates with the highest number of votes advance. The candidate with the highest number of votes shall then become Senator. Senate elections are held every two years, when 1/3 of the senators are elected, i.e. in 27 districts.

Elections to municipal councils are held according to the principle of proportional representation and are held every 4 years. Again, the number of votes available to the voter is equal to the number of councillors. However, this depends on the number of inhabitants in the municipality or town (The minimum number of members can be 5, the maximum 55. An exception is the Prague City Council, where the maximum number of members is 70). A voter can vote either for the whole candidate list, for candidates through the candidate list or combine both of these methods. The D'Hondt divisor is used to divide the mandate, but it is important to mention that the electoral threshold is 5%, both for entities running independently and for coalitions. However, if there are fewer candidates on the list than the number of representatives, the electoral threshold is reduced proportionally.

The Ministry of the Interior has so far published only basic information for this year's elections, mainly concerning the candidates. For example, candidate lists, whether for the Senate or for municipal councils, must be submitted by 19 July 2022 at the latest. However, as regards the planned measures that should accompany the elections, there is no mention of them, not even in the public space. And even with regard to the loosening of measures related to covid-19, no significant changes are envisaged.

The question is therefore whether any measures will be introduced for this year's elections to the municipal councils and the Senate that would allow infected voters to vote. Personally, I think rather not, as the Czech Republic is in a good position in terms of the number of infected (in May 2022 it was in the lower hundreds). However, it also depends on how the situation develops as a result of the war in Ukraine and whether, not wishing to be an evil prophet, the situation with the new monkeypox virus disease deteriorates to the point of necessitating alternative voting methods again.

May 2022

[1] https://aplikace.mvcr.cz/sbirka-zakonu/ViewFile.aspx?type=c&id=39353

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The views expressed above belong to the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Centre for Social Sciences.