By Julian Dierkes
There seems to be a strong possibility that none of the three candidates will achieve a majority of votes in the first round. Elsewhere I’ve written more about specifics regarding blank ballots, etc.
Second Round
What’s the schedule on which a second round might unfold?
§147.1 of election law says that GEC submits determination of whether majority has been obtained within 10 days of end of election day.
That suggests any time between June 27 and July 6.
§148.2 says that re-election has to be announced within week after decision.
At the earliest that would mean June 27 announcement. At the latest, that would be July 13. I haven’t found a paragraph that specifies a minimum number of days between the announcement and the carrying out of the second round.
Presumably, the government would want the second round to happen as early as possible to maintain a distance from naadam when turnout might drop significantly.
Oddly, these timelines seem to be contradicted by §105.2 which reads,
The central election authority shall set and announce the second round date within 14 days after the first polling day, and organize thereof.
Quorum
Another twist in the timeline may be the requirement that each polling station has a minimum turnout of 50%.
§106 Additional Polling
§106.1 If more than 50 percent of all voters registered on the list of voters registered on the list of voters in a constituency fail to engage in the polling, additional polling shall be held in each constituency.
§106.2 […]
§106.3 Additional polling shall be held within a week after the decision thereon is made.
§106.4 A decision to hold additional polling shall specify polling station location, date and time of additional polling, and that polling shall be held on weekends.
§106.5 Voters who did not engage in the first polling and are registered on the list of voters shall be entitled to engage in additional polling and cast their votes.
§106.6 Attendance and the number of votes of those who engaged in additional polling shall be added to the attendance and the number of votes of those who engaged in the first polling to determine the sum of all voters of the election precinct.
In a situation where there is additional polling required as per §106.1, does that further delay a decision about a second round as per §147.1? So if additional elections are held on July 1/2 that would push a second round further back, again towards naadam.
Conclusion
In the end, I’m not entirely sure about timelines especially if some precincts will require additional polling and/or a second round is necessary…
Acknowledgement
As with a previous post, this post benefited from a Twitter exchange with Iveelt Ts.
Follow
