Advance voting provides an opportunity for voters who cannot come to their polling station on the election day. Early voting is held in municipalities between 8 AM and 8 PM on Wednesday and Thursday.
People who are in hospitals, social care and welfare institutions, performing their military service and held in prisons can vote by mail in special post offices during their opening hours on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
The run-off ballot is held in 67 single-mandate constituencies, with 134 candidates competing for mandates. The second round will not be held in three districts that picked their MPs in the first round of voting on 14 October. No voting will take place in Zarasai–Visaginas voting area following invalidation of the results of the first round of voting. The decision to cancel the results has been taken to the Constitutional Court.
The Central Electoral Commission said that early voting would still be organized in municipalities of Kėdainiai, Šalčininkai, Vilkaviškis, Zarasai and Visaginas to facilitate voting of all Lithuanian voters who will not be able to appear in their polling stations, although the districts have already elected their MPs.
Among candidates in the second round of voting are 35 nominees of the Labour Party and the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats (conservatives) each, 28 Social Democrats, nine candidates of the Path of Courage party, the Order and Justice party's seven candidates, six candidates of the Liberal Movement and the Electoral Action of Poles each, four independent candidates, two members of the Lithuanian Peasant and Greens Union, and two members of the Liberal and Center Union.
The MPs elected in the first round of voting include Social Democrat Algirdas Butkevičius who won his mandate in Vilkaviškis, the Labour Party's Regina Baltraitienė (Kėdainiai), and Leonardas Talmontas of Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania (Vilnius–Šalčininkai).
President votes early
Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaitė cast her ballot in the run-off of parliamentary elections in early voting that kicked off on Wednesday.
Grybauskaitė invited the nation to actively vote in the elections and vote responsibly, the President's Office said.
"The second round of the elections is just as important as the first one. We have only elected half of the Seimas. We have to fulfill our duty to the full. Every one of us have to cast their ballot responsibly. Those who will be unable to come to ballot boxes on Sunday should express their will in other ways, just like I did," Grybauskaitė said in the press release.
The President's Office hadn't announced Grybauskaitė's intentions to vote in advance, as well as the time and place of voting, the voting was not specified in her official agenda.
Presidential adviser Daiva Ulbinaitė told BNS on Wednesday that the president voted early, as she would not be able to cast her ballot on Sunday. The aide did not elaborate on the causes keeping the president from coming to a polling station this weekend.
Asked about reasons behind the failure to announce the president's plans to vote on Wednesday, Ulbinaitė replied: "This was because the specific time of voting was not known."
"The president just found some free time in her Wednesday's agenda and went to vote," she added.
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| Dž. G. Barysaitės/President.lt nuotr./Dalia Grybauskaitė |
