President Calls for Solution to Issue of Authentication of Petition Signatures

Bratislava, 4 June (TASR) - President Peter Pellegrini has called for a solution to the issue of the authentication of signatures on petition sheets in connection with referendums, pointing out that it is currently impossible to verify the authenticity of signatures. The head of state called on the government and public authorities to address the situation. Otherwise, he said, there is a risk that there will be many successful petitions in Slovakia in which it won't be possible to verify the true will of the people. "Today, from publicly available databases, with the help of artificial intelligence or with the help of hundreds of active people, you can submit to the government or Presidential Palace 400,000 signatures every third week without actually having to collect those signatures on the street, and this petition will look credible, it will meet all the requirements of the law. And nobody, neither the president nor my colleagues, has the right under the current wording of the law to question such signatures, even if it were obvious that those 400,000 were written by artificial intelligence on a computer," said Pellegrini. The head of state explained that the President's Office has no official authority to examine the authenticity of the signatures on petition sheets at the moment. Its only right is to examine whether the sheet is correctly filled in and signed. A referendum is called by the president if at least 350,000 citizens request it by petition. am/df