Piles of mail-in ballots, some cast for the United for Hungary rainbow coalition, as well as for the far-right Mi Hazánk party, have been discovered in a garbage dump near the town of Marosvásárhely, Romania — also known in Romanian as Târgu Mureș. Many of the discarded ballots were burned. The dump is essentially an illegal nuisance ground, located on a vacant property between Marosvásárhely and the village of Jedd. The ballots were found amidst waste materials used in the construction industry. Romanian journalist Cristian Teodorescu broke the news by producing a video recording of the discarded ballots. The Punctul.ro website also published a Hungarian-language piece on the incident.
A burned ballot cast for the United for Hungary rainbow coalition in Marosvásárhely.
Local police are investigating. It’s worth noting that many Hungarian voters in Romania are not actually mailing their ballots. They have been dropping them off at the Hungarian consulate in the town of Csíkszereda — also known in Romanian as Miercurea Ciuc. In principle, Hungarian diplomats collect these ballots and then forward them to Budapest by diplomatic courier. Somehow, piles of ballots have been dumped amongst rubbish. Transylvanian journalist Boróka Parászka indicated that local police have arrived at the scene and collected the evidence. It is not known how many ballots have been dumped and destroyed — some are completely burned, while others are partially destroyed.
Hungarian news site Telex tried to reach Hungary’s consul in Csíkszereda, László Tóth. The chief diplomat’s colleagues told the journalists that he is “busy.” No response or comment has arrived to date.
Péter Márki-Zay, United for Hungary’s candidate for prime minister, is accusing the regime of electoral fraud. “Now we’ve caught them red-handed: discarded ballot papers have been found in a landfill near Marosvásárhely in Transylvania. We always knew they were cheating in the elections, but now everyone can see the means by which they cheat. More and more people in Transylvania seem to think that Fidesz has to go. And they are so terrified of defeat that they are not even afraid of the most obvious fraud: they literally wanted to trash the will of the electorate,” Mr. Márki-Zay commented.
The far-right Mi Hazánk party also protested the burning of ballots. Mi Hazánk’s spokesperson in Marosvásárhely, Gyula Balde, noted: “We are shocked and outraged by the destruction of the mail-in ballots, which raises suspicions of fraud. We call for an immediate and thorough investigation.”
Mihály Levente Kovács, a leading politician with the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ), believes that the incident is a political provocation, rather than fraud. Despite some historic tensions and a tradition of liberalism, RMDSZ has transformed into a political ally of Fidesz in the past number of years.
Meanwhile, Mr. Márki-Zay, traditionally a supporter of the right of the Hungarian diaspora abroad to vote in elections, has now called for all mail-in ballots from abroad to be discarded for fear of widespread electoral fraud.
“Our lawyers are already working on the next steps. We will not let Fidesz and Orbán continue cheating,” Mr. Márki-Zay declared.
