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Comment by orblivion | Hacker News Reader

For those outside of Europe, could you explain how this works? Are these Hungarian citizens living abroad who are able to somehow vote from polling places accessible by train within the Netherlands? Is this an EU organized thing?

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Only in Amsterdam inside Netherlands after waiting a long line. At the same time Hungarians in Romania could vote by mail and the government was using Fidesz to collect the votes and threw out votes of the opposition.

The soft dictatorship works very well, Hungary will go even more down in the future. I'll probably leave Hungary before Hungary leaves EU/NATO and gets into a war.

Voting by mail is insecure? This is very troubling.

It's not simply voting by mail, it's voting by mail by not even using official the post office in Romania.

I know that you're probably refering to US, but I don't make any comment about it, because I don't live there, so I don't know what really happened in US.

In Romania some people found partially burned ballots with only opposition votes next to a garbage bin before the elections ended. The proofs of voter fraud couldn't have been clearer. It's supposed to be a scandal, but nothing will happen about it.

https://hungarytoday.hu/discarded-burnt-postal-ballots-scand...

Well that is just an isolated case. There is simply no evidence to support the baseless conspiracy theory that postal voting results in widespread fraud. This has been well established by the experts and journalists.

Clearly the quality of the audit matters and that differs massively between countries. Nobody disputes the validity and integrity of postal voting in Australia for example.

> There is simply no evidence to support the baseless conspiracy theory that postal voting results in widespread fraud.

You're applying US culture-war stuff to another country and culture.

Who exactly would Hungary get into a war with? It borders Slovakia (EU member), Austria (EU member), Croatia (EU member), Serbia, Romania (EU member), Ukraine, and Poland (EU member). Is it your contention that it's going to invade the EU? Or Serbia? Or Ukraine? Or is Hungary going to use its awesome force projection capabilities to get into a war with a country that it doesn't border?

“Beat them with sarcasm, not arguments” — James Looney

Most countries (even non EU ones) allow its citizens residing in foreign countries to vote in national elections at its embassies.

So Hungarians residing in Netherlands could have been able to vote at Hungarian embassies/consulates in Netherlands (if they made it to the embassy).

Sometimes even local stuff. U.S. states, our provincial government level, have processes in place to account for Americans living abroad to vote in state and local elections. It’s guaranteed by law, I think. Our states handle all voting on behalf of the federal government anyway (registration, voting day operations, counts, all often under the misleadingly named office of a Secretary of State), so it’s a natural consequence of our structure. It is nice to live abroad as if you were still at your last physical address for voting purposes, though, and usually not notice a big difference. I think it’s implied that those of us who have done it intend to come back, in the system’s thinking, but I think everyone understands the relevance of their vote according to their situation and beliefs.

We’re of course all too familiar with this process from several consequential court cases deliberating its efficacy and merit in generational memory. Whether it’s sensible has been argued with elections on the line.

A shocking thing for me is that if you're an American living abroad registered to vote in California you're allowed to vote by email (well technically fax, but there's a DoD email alias you can send your scanned ballot PDF to and someone will print it out and fax it, which counts). Oh, and if you vote any ballot this way other than a write-in for federal offices you might also get a residency audit and have to pay California's personal income tax (which doesn't recognize any US tax treaties). You're not allowed to vote by fax or email if you don't have a non-US address.

In SC, you vote in a web app if you live out of the country.

They need to travel to the embassy to vote.

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