Over 20,000 postal votes have been declared ‘invalid’ because they were sent along with the original ID s and passports of the voters.
These votes for the European elections on Sunday were not counted or added to the final results.
According to information obtained by news website ieidiseis.gr, judicial sources, said that the fact that more than 20,000 ballots were deemed invalid is due to the omissions and failures of the voters, who chose to vote by mail.
According to the same sources, most of the voters, whose votes were not counted, had forgotten to include in the electoral files, with the ballots, the responsible declarations required by law and photocopies of their identification documents.
Others appeared more than willing to comply with the postal vote provisions and put in the envelope their original ID or passport together with the ballot.
This had the effect the canceling these ballots, as the ‘anonymity’ of the vote was violated. On the other hand, those voters were left without their ID or passport.
Elections officials have collected all identification documents and the owners have to go and seek for them.
There are several dozen voters who mistakenly put their identity cards and passports in the envelopes and will now have to look for them.
Some of them are said to be very old voters, as the oldest ID says year of birth 1928!!
It is the first time Greece allowed the postal vote.
According to official data, a total of 202,515 people registered to vote by mail between mid-February and end-April.
However, just 152,216 people managed to successfully proceed with their postal ovtes. Of them 115,571 were in Greece and 36,645 abroad.
Now officials at the Interior Ministry wonder what went wrong and whether the instructions were not clear enough.
