Elections to the EP: Keren vareso, Romale! Go vote!

Today people in the Czech Republic began choosing their future representatives in the European Parliament. Voters will decide not only who will take part in steering the EU during the next five years and in the creation of European norms – and therefore of Czech law – but their votes will also influence the Czech political scene, as these elections will be the most extensive test of voter satisfaction with the current political representation ahead of early autumn elections to the Czech lower house.

Voters will elect 22 MEPs from 32 different political groups represented by 700 candidates. More than eight million voters are eligible to decide who becomes an MEP. During the last EP elections five years ago, almost one-third of those eligible to do so took advantage of their right to vote.

Polls opened at 14:00 in almost 15 000 places around the country. Voters must bring proof of their identity to the polling place, either an identity card or passport. Should a voter not have received a ballot in the mail, he or she will be able to get one from the election commissioner together with an officially stamped election envelope. Voters can give their preferential votes to two candidates at the most on the ballot. They then place the sealed envelope into the ballot box.

In addition to Czech voters, the Irish will select their MEPs today, and elections there may be a test prior to a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, which reforms the enlarged EU. Irish voters are expected to hand the main governing party a defeat over the economic crisis, but that will not change the country’s pro-EU orientation.

The first day of voting will end at 22:00 in the Czech Republic. After an overnight break, voting will continue on Saturday from 08:00 – 14:00. On that same day, elections will take place in Cyprus, Italy, Latvia, Malta and Slovakia. Great Britain and the Netherlands voted on Thursday. Everyone will wait until Monday for results. Election commissioners will start counting votes on Sunday after 22:00, when voting ends in the rest of the EU.

The Czech Statistical Office will publish electoral results on the web server www.volby.cz. It will do so for the first time ever without its chair, Jan Fischer, who became Czech PM after the collapse of the Topolánek government. Vice-Chair Jiří Křovák has headed the office since 28 April.