Electoral bodies How to submit an objection - National Election Office
Questions & Answers
What electoral bodies do exist?
There are two types of them: electoral offices and electoral commissions.
The tasks pertaining to electoral offices:
preparing elections,
organizing elections,
the conduct of elections,
providing information, and
handling data.
The tasks pertaining to electoral commissions:
to determine the result of elections,
ensuring the fairness and legality of elections,
ensuring impartiality, and, if necessary,
to restore legal order.
Which electoral bodies are at work in a parliamentary election?
These are the election offices having a role in parliamentary elections:
local election offices
parliamentary single member constituency election offices
territorial election offices
election offices at foreign representations
the National Election Office.
These are the election commissions having a role in parliamentary elections:
polling station commissions (in settlements with a single polling district, the powers and responsibilities of the polling station commission are taken up by the local electoral commission)
parliamentary single member constituency election commissions
the National Election Commission.
What is the National Election Office, and what are its tasks?
The National Election Office (NEO) is an autonomous government agency. The NEO is independent, and subject only to the law; it may not be bound by any instructions regarding its duties, and it carries out its tasks independently of other bodies and free of outside influence.
The National Election Office primarily informs voters and candidates, and carries out organizational tasks related to preparing and conducting elections.
What is the National Election Commission, and what are its tasks?
The primary tasks of the NEC are to determine the result of elections, ensuring the fairness and legality of elections, ensuring impartiality, and, if necessary, to restore the legal order.
The NEC also decides: on the registration of nominating organisations; on the timeframe for broadcasting political advertisement of those entitled in the linear media services of public media service; on lodging objection regarding the work of election offices at foreign representations; on objections that do not fall in the competence of parliamentary single member constituency election commissions and the place where the acts were committed are impossible to determine. Furthermore, the NEC adjudicates appeals against decisions taken by parliamentary single member constituency election commissions, as well as objections to the participation in the electoral campaign of media content providers, the press and cinemas. It may initiate procedures by the body with the relevant authority, if it discovers a breach of the law.
The NEC supervises the counting of postal votes by the NEO, determines the result of the postal voting, and determines the result of the national lists.
The NEC publishes a notice about the result of tallied votes on a national scale.
Who are the members of the National Election Commission?
The seven members and three alternate members of the National Election Commission shall be elected by Parliament for a term of nine years on the proposal of the President of the Republic. They shall require the vote of two-thirds of Members of Parliament present. The current members of the NEC were elected on 30 September 2015.
Political parties can also delegate members to the NEC as follows:
from the inaugural session of the Parliament to the setting of the day of the election of the next Parliament those parties having a group in Parliament can delegate a member each to the NEC,
from the day on which the date of the election of the Parliament has been set to the day on which the national lists have been registered, the National Election Commission operates without any delegated member,
from the day on which their registration has become final till the inaugural session of the Parliament, each party that has put forward a national list may delegate a member to the National Election Commission. Each national minority self-government that has put forward a national list may delegate a member to the National Election Commission, however these members are allowed to vote only in cases regarding the national minorities.
I noticed irregularities in the election. What shall I do?
In this case you can submit an objection to the competent electoral commission, namely:
to a parliamentary single mandate constituency election commission
in a case which is linked to the constituency in question,
in a case which is linked to what happened in the polling station,
in the case of an irregularity committed by a regional or local media service provider, or an on-demand media service provider, or a press product that is not distributed on country level (in these cases, the objection has to be lodged to the commission competent in the area of the registered office of the media content provider), or
to the National Election Commission, in any other cases.
The objection shall contain
a reference made to the legal violation;
the proofs of that legal violation (except for cases linked to the media);
the name, address (registered office address), and – if it is different from the address (registered office address) – postal address of the person submitting the objection;
the personal identification number of the person submitting the objection, or – if that person lives abroad and does not have a Hungarian address, nor does he have a personal identification number – the type and number of the document proving that he/ she is a Hungarian national, or – in the case of nominating organizations or other organizations – the registration number issued by a judicial court.
