Information on voter registration cards for the regional council elections

Regional Council Elections

• A voter may use their voter card to vote in a constituency other than the one to which they belong based on their place of permanent residence;
• in regional council elections, a voter holding a voter card may only vote in municipalities that fall within the territorial jurisdiction of the region where the elections are being held and within whose territorial jurisdiction the voter is registered as having their permanent residence.

Where can you apply for a voter card

• at the local authority (town hall, market town office, municipal office of a statutory city without territorial divisions, or the office of a city district or urban district of a statutory city with territorial divisions) in the voter’s place of permanent residence. This also applies if the voter is registered on a special electoral roll at a consular post abroad;
• as no regional council elections are held in the capital city of Prague; consequently, the authorities of Prague’s city districts do not issue voter cards for these elections at all.

What must be included in the application

• The application must include the voter’s first name and surname, date of birth, address of permanent residence, and, where applicable, the address for delivery of the voter card; the latter is not required if the voter wishes to collect it in person.
• There is no prescribed form for applying for a voter card. You may use the sample application form prepared by the Ministry of the Interior and made available on its website.

How and by when to submit an application

Applications for a voter card may be submitted from the date the election is announced, i.e. from 12 June 2024.

Written applications may be submitted until 13 September 2024 at 4.00 pm:

• by means of a document bearing the voter’s officially certified signature, or
• in electronic form via the voter’s data box.

    Voters may use their data box as a private individual or as a self-employed person to submit their application. A legal entity’s data box cannot be used.

    Another option is to submit the application via the Citizen’s Portal; after logging in to this portal, the voter can simply complete the application and send it via their data box to the local authority responsible for their place of permanent residence. To apply for a voter card in this way, you must have one of the means of electronic identification and a natural person’s data box (a self-employed person’s data box is not sufficient). The advantage of submitting an application via the Citizen Portal is that the application for a voter card is automatically populated with the relevant details of the specific voter.

• in person by 18 September 2024 at 4.00 pm, when the voter must go to the local authority office responsible for their place of permanent residence, prove their identity, and the local authority will make an official record of this application.

It is not possible to apply for a voter card through another person.

Issuing a voter card

The local authority may issue a voter’s card for regional council elections from the date the elections are announced, i.e. from 12 June 2024, by:

• handing it over in person to the voter or to a person holding a power of attorney bearing the voter’s officially certified signature, or
• sends it by post to the address specified by the voter in their application. A voter card cannot be sent electronically to the applicant’s data box, as it is a printed form containing security features.

If, during a joint election, a voter applies for a voter card for both the regional council and Senate elections, they will always receive separate voter cards for each type of election and for each round of voting.

Procedure at the polling station

A voter casting a vote using a voter card must hand it over to the polling station committee, which will then issue them with a blank official envelope and ballot papers.

If a voter who has been issued with a voter card decides to vote in their electoral district, to which they belong according to their permanent address, they must also hand over the voter card to the relevant polling station committee. Otherwise, the local electoral committee will not allow them to vote.

Inability to issue a voter card

There are also situations where the local authority cannot issue a voter card to a voter upon their request:

• the voter is not registered as having permanent residence in the municipality in question and, for this reason, is not included in the permanent electoral roll by the local authority,
• the voter has already been issued with a voter card for the 2024 regional council elections; in such a case, the voter cannot be issued with a second voter card for the same elections.

In the event of non-delivery, loss or theft of a voter card that has already been issued, a new voter card cannot be issued to the voter. Although in most cases the loss is through no fault of the voter, the inability to issue a duplicate stems from the fact that the alleged loss cannot be proven in any way, and this could lead to the easy misuse of multiple voter cards issued to the same voter and a breach of the principle of equality, whereby each voter may vote only once.