Breaking: Recount of invalid votes in Budapest mayoral election finished – UPDATED
On Friday afternoon, the recount of invalid votes cast in the mayoral election was completed at the National Election Office (NVI). Here are the results.
UPDATE
As Világgazdaság writes, the chairman of the National Election Committee (NVB), Róbert Sasvári, called the next meeting of the committee for 5 pm. Preliminary information revealed that the results of the recount will also be announced. However, the meeting did not start at the announced time. Allegedly, heated debate among committee members formed over 500-600 ballot papers.
After the delay, the meeting finally started at 7.25 pm. The invalid votes were recounted and finalised. 53 votes for Grundtner András, 112 votes for Gergely Karácsony, and 363 (later corrected to 395 due to a mistake) for Dávid Vitézy. Therefore, it is official now that Gergely Karácsony won the election. He collected 41 more votes than the runner-up Vitézy.
Recount of the invalid points in the Budapest mayoral election
According to Index‘s sources, today’s recount revealed over 500 votes that had initially been declared invalid but were actually valid. The vast majority of these votes were for Dávid Vitézy, with a smaller portion cast for Gergely Karácsony. This discovery narrowed the gap between the candidates. However, despite the adjustment, Gergely Karácsony ultimately won by a slim margin of just 54 votes.
Collecting the ballots
By the 4 p.m. deadline on Thursday, the National Election Office had collected all the invalid ballot papers from local election offices across Budapest for the mayoral election. Attila Nagy, President of the National Election Office, stated that the process was conducted in the presence of local election committee members, ensuring transparency. In the 2nd, 9th, 13th and 15th districts, only members of the local election offices were present.
Attila Nagy also mentioned that today they will check carefully all the invalid ballot papers. The valid ones will be collected separately and made available to the committee. The committee members will review these ballots, and based on their findings, they can determine the result of the recount.
Our article will be updated as more information about the recount of invalid votes in the Budapest mayoral election surfaces.