Votes will be counted by hand in Latvia's parliamentary election this year

On Thursday, March 26th, the Saeima adopted an amendment to the Saeima Election Law, which means that all vote counting in the 15th Saeima elections, due to take place in the Autumn, will be by hand.

"It has been determined that valid ballot papers will be counted manually in the 2026 Saeima elections," said a statement by the Saeima.

Oļegs Burovs, the chairman of the commission responsible for the draft law, previously said that it was important to remove any doubts about the vote-counting process following glitches with automatic counting machines in last year's municipal elections, where they were being tried for the first time.

The problems led to the departure of the then-head of the Central Election Commission and ongoing legal action involving the official responsible for buying and preparing the vote-counting machines that proved to be not up to the job.   

Burovs emphasized that the State Administration and Local Government Commission is following the course of events, is constantly in close contact with the Central Election Commission regarding the organization of the elections, and is ready to take action to remove all doubts and ensure that the 15th Saeima elections are reliable and secure.

The proposal for a manual vote count in the 15th Saeima elections stems from the possible irregularities in IT procurement, especially considering an investigation launched by the European Public Prosecutor's Office and the State Police into a potential 1.5 million-euro fraud, as well as the criminal proceedings being investigated by the KNAB anti-corruption force regarding the disclosure of classified information.

As recently reported, counting votes manually could slightly increase the cost of the 15th Saeima elections in October this year according to Māris Zviedris, the new chairman of the Central Election Commission.

Election day for the 15th Saeima elections will be October 3rd.