It rained blue paper in the Hungarian parliament in Budapest on Monday evening, when members of the green liberal party Politics Can Be Different (LMP) threw slips of paper at the government benches in a reference to the infamous "blue-ballot" rigged elections of August 1947. Back then, activists from the Hungarian Communist Party (MKP) exploited a system of blue chits to travel round casting votes in dozens of different places, allowing the MKP to gain a majority.
The Hungarian opposition fears a similar fraud might occur under Viktor Orbán's ultra-conservative nationalist government. His ruling Fidesz party (Alliance of Young Democrats) used its two-thirds majority in parliament to amend the constitution to allow citizens to vote in elections only if they register in advance either in person or electronically.
Opposition parties and activists see the move as an attempt to keep poorer voters who are unlikely to be Fidesz supporters away from the ballot boxes. They also accuse the government of paving the way for election fraud.
"By dispensing with the central register, the system of voter registration ushers in broad scope for fraud because it means multiple votes can scarcely be prevented," argues LMP politician Gergely Karácsony.
The lawmakers of Fidesz passed an amendment to the constitution that introduces voter registration. The actual law on voter registration is expected to be approved on November 12. Without this initial amendment, the Constitutional Court would most probably have rejected the new law.
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