Brussels (Brussels Morning) â Approximately 2,171 voters in Belgium were handed the wrong electronic ballot documents during the tripartite elections on 9 June â which might have influenced the final seat distribution, according to a report by the body governing the conduct of electronic voting.
How did incorrect ballots impact Belgiumâs tripartite elections?
Most Belgians were permitted to vote three times: for the federal, regional and European parliament. However, children and non-Belgian EU citizens were only permitted to vote for the European Parliament. This is where things went frequently wrong: several minors expressed they were wrongly entitled to vote for the Federal and Regional Parliament.
Now, the âBoard of Expertsâ that commands the proper conduct of the electronic elections across Belgium confirmed that these were not just anecdotal cases, but that individuals were given the wrong electronic ballot papers on a larger scale: in many polling places, the number of votes radiated did not match the number of voters in each category.
âOnly in a minority of stations were no errors found,â the experts wrote in their report, De Standaard stated. âThe Board must decide that it cannot be ruled out that the problem [âŠ] has had an impact on the final distribution of seats in one or more elections.
Were Belgian election results influenced by these ballot mistakes?
The mistakes went both ways: in some polling positions, too many votes were cast for the federal and regional elections. In others, there were too rare, suggesting that some voters could mistakenly cast a vote only for the European Parliament (despite being eligible to vote in all elections). The particular that some voters obtained the wrong electronic ballot papers was due to the fact they had been assigned the wrong chip card. Sometimes by error, but sometimes also due to a technical problem, if the chip card was released too early during the setup process, the new settings might not have been preserved.
The professionals checked all electoral districts in Brussels and German-speaking Belgium and made a selection in five districts in Flanders. In the Brussels-Capital Region, voting for the Brussels Parliament (and for those voting on the Dutch-language lists, the Flemish Parliament) was completely electronic, while this was only partially the case in Flanders
Which regions in Belgium experienced the most ballot errors?
They discovered that at least 2,171 voters in the investigated districts received incorrect ballot documents. The majority of the errors (nearly 1,700) were placed in Brussels â the equivalent of 0.3% of votes cast in the Capital Region. That appears little, but it may still have affected the distribution of parliamentary seats.
In the Brussels electoral district of the Flemish Parliament, Open VLD was hardly 13 votes short of robbing a seat from Vlaams Belang. There were also very comparable results in several other areas; in five districts, more irregular than 500 votes would suffice to tip a seat to another party.
In the five districts that were studied in Flanders, 399 incorrect votes were discovered, or 0.2% of votes cast. If the same rate applies in the other Flemish municipalities where electronic voting took place, this amounts to more than 5,000 false votes in Flanders.
In the meantime, the Interior Affairs Ministry stressed that the elections were conducted perfectly, but that âhuman errorsâ happened âhere and thereâ at polling places because the procedures were not fully observed.
âGiven the sophistication of the elections, where voting was permitted three times (or even four for those voting on Dutch-language lists in Brussels), this is not completely incomprehensible, but it remains a shame,â said spokesperson Koen Schuyten.
