Special Ward Set Up for People from Abroad Voting in General Election

Bratislava, February 27 (TASR) - People living in 2,926 towns and villages across Slovakia will be able to vote in the general election on Saturday, with one special ward of the total of 5,998 being set up for voters from abroad who don't have permanent residence in Slovakia, said Statistics Office chairman Alexander Ballek at a press conference on Thursday. While only 30 percent of the wards processed the results of the vote four years ago electronically, almost 70 percent of them have now asked for the Integrated Electoral Information System, which can be used for all types of elections, said Ballek. The first preliminary results of the general election, set to take place between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., will be released shortly after the polling stations close, with data on the Statistics Office's special website www.volbysr.sk then updated every ten minutes. Ballek said that the Statistics Office has adopted measures to prevent technical problems and hacker attacks from affecting the process of vote-counting. bub/df