Page:The Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic.pdf/7

 On the day before the elections, and on the polling day itself it is prohibited to sell or to serve drinks containing alcohol.

The elections take place under the direction of a local electoral committee composed—as all other committees are, which assist at elections—of representatives of the various parties.

It is the duty of the electoral committee to make sure that every voter in their district is in possession of all ballot papers which the authorities ought to deliver to him and to see that they are free from erasures or markings of any kind. Where papers are lacking, or have suffered erasure or been marked in any way, the Committee sees to the recipients getting others, so that the voter shall have all the lists of candidates in so far as they should have been delivered to him officially.

The voter receives, further, an official envelope. Every envelope is of the same size, quality and colour, and may not carry any distinguishing mark.

The voter himself places the ballot paper in the envelope. He does this in a booth so arranged that no one can see him and afterwards in the presence of the electoral committee, puts the envelope into the urn. The lists of candidates of which he makes no use he places in a box specially provided for the purpose.

The voter may place in the urn the list of candidates of any party he likes.

At the conclusion of the polling the electoral Committee of the constituency makes a first partial scrutiny, that is to say, counts the number of ballot papers given for each party. Even such lists of candidates on which the names of the candidates are struck out or altered are counted in favour of the party to which they belong, so that erasure, or striking out (even if all names be struck out) or alteration have no effect whatsoever. This is the system of the “strictly binding lists”, as it is called.

On the second day (the Tuesday) following the polls the Election Committee of the constituency meets and on the basis of reports from all the districts composing the constituency, carry out what is called the first scrutiny.

They ascertain the sum total of all valid votes given to the individual parties; this total is then divided by the number of seats allotted to the particular constituency; and the resultant figure (no regard being paid to remainders) is the “election number” that is, the number of votes necessary to secure the election of one member.

The total number of votes given for each party list is now divided by this “election number” and the committee allots to each party a