Are ballot boxes left unattended in unsecured locations at night during the two-day Czech election period, making it easy for votes to be manipulated? No, that's not true: the ballot boxes and polling station rooms are sealed overnight to prevent easy access and ballot tampering.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) which was published by TikTok on September 3, 2023, with captions in Czech, translated by Lead Stories staff reading:
13 Ways to Manipulate Elections in the Czech Republic... Frauds, Lies and Stealing of Votes.
The person in the video identifies himself as Robert Vasicek and he says:
During the election you put the vote in a plastic box, sealed with a seal. During the day, the election committee, recruited from voters of specific political parties, watches over it. At night, no one is watching (over the ballot boxes), they are just locked in the voting rooms. If it is in the school, the committee members, the school janitor, the director and many other personnel have keys to this room. Police teams are randomly patrolling nearby and there is an open way to change the votes, especially if the system controls the police as well.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Sep 6 08:05:32 2023 UTC)
Elections in the Czech Republic take place over a two-day period and election laws include measures taken to prevent manipulation of ballots and ballot boxes during the entire election schedule, including the overnight period when polls are closed. Measures include securing ballot boxes, or portable ballot boxes, so that ballots cannot be added, or removed overnight. The precinct election committees check that seals, placed both on the ballot box and the polling station room where the votes are cast have not been broken overnight, according to parliamentary election regulations, for example. Before the end of the first day of voting, the committees must properly secure all documents related to the voting process, such as voter tallies. Election officials are trained and rules allow observers to witness the entire election process to ensure all political parties are able to monitor the vote.
Police patrols are intensified around polling stations during the entire two-day period, according to Czech Interior Ministry spokesman Ondrej Kratoska wrote to Lead Stories. Kratoska added that the ministry has found no cases of overnight ballot box tampering during the two-day election process.
Robert Vasicek, the man who claimed possible vote rigging, is a city council member for Prague 11 district, and a former member of the opposition populist party Direct Freedom, or SPD.
