Official investigation of vote tourism in Hungarian village

At the request of atlatszo.hu, the notary of the local government has finally launched an official inquiry into ‘vote tourism’ in the Hungarian village of Abaújlak. Several persons have been registered as residents of the village in the weeks preceding the local elections back in 2010. Five persons were registered at the address of Sándor Kocsis, the father of the governing party’s (Fidesz) communication director, Máté Kocsis. Last summer, the local prosecutor’s office issued a reprimand to Sándor Kocsis for the forgery of official documents. According to the prosecutor, the persons were registered but not actually living at his address, which contributed false data to the register of voters. The 33 persons charged with the forgery of documents didn’t get any fines, only a reprimand. Mr. Kocsis pleaded guilty to charges of falsely registering the residents at his address.

However, the register has not been examined or updated throughout the course of the case. Atlatszo.hu contacted the local notary and government office for information on this. Following a lengthy bureaucratic procedure atlatszo.hu was finally told that the official examination of the register of residence was launched in March 2014. Unfortunately, atlatszo.hu’s original goal of having the inquiry completed before the parliamentary elections on 6 April was not achieved, but by the time of the local government elections in October the update will be ready – unless there is a new wave of vote tourism to the village.

Translation by Anikó Mészáros, editing by Orsolya Gulyás. The Hungarian language source article was posted on 09 April 2014.