Latvian citizens! Let’s get ready to vote on October 3
Every four years, Latvian citizens are given the opportunity to determine the direction of our country, Latvia. Do we want a strong, democratic, European Latvia, or are we prepared to let pro-Russian parties gain strength? If we love Latvia and care about its future, then one thing is clear: we must vote.
Latvian citizens who are at least 18 years old and hold valid passports or eID cards will be able to vote. In Canada, citizens of Latvia will be able to vote in person in six cities: Vancouver, Edmonton, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. Polling stations will be open from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. local time. If you are abroad at that time, you may vote at any Latvian polling station in the world. The addresses of polling places in Canada can be found here.
If you are unable to vote in person at a polling place, you must register to vote by mail. Registration to vote by mail takes place online at www.latvija.gov.lv between August 29 and September 25. To register, you need a valid eID card with valid certificates. In the past, you needed an eID card reader, but now you can also read the card using a smartphone. Still, the process can be tricky. If you have any difficulties or questions regarding the process, please email admin@lnak.org, and we will do our best to assist you personally.
When you register to vote by mail, you will need to print out the ballot for the party you wish to vote for. It will be important to follow the instructions and package and label everything properly. In the past, you had to send your vote to Riga. A new option this year is that you can send your vote to the Latvian Embassy in Ottawa. Your vote must arrive in Ottawa by October 3.
If you vote by mail but later change your mind about which party to support, you may vote a second time in person at a polling place. In that case, the mail-in ballot will be rejected, and the ballot cast at the polling place will be considered valid.
(If you’re not sure whether you’ll be able to make it to the polling place on October 3, it’s a good idea to vote by mail ahead of time.)
If your passport or eID card has expired, you need to act very quickly. It is still possible to renew it in person at the Latvian Embassy in Ottawa. The last date to complete this is August 24, so that you can still a chance to receive your passport in time to vote with it.
LNAK recently sent out an email, asking our subscribers to complete a survey about their readiness to vote and the issues that are important to them. The responses so far show that we are most concerned about Latvia’s security, NATO, and European values. The next priorities are health care, the Latvian language, reducing economic inequality, and education.
If you have not yet received or completed the survey, please do so. We’d love to hear your thoughts!
The survey made it clear that everyone is waiting for information about the parties and candidates. To help us prepare to vote conscientiously and with full knowledge of the facts, LNAK has invited Aivars Ozoliņš, a journalist and political commentator for the Latvian news magazine ir.lv in Latvia, to visit us from September 11 to 13.
From 1990 to 2009, Aivars Ozoliņš was a political reporter for the newspaper “Diena,” but in 2009, when “Diena” was sold, he and his colleagues founded the magazine ir.lv. Ozoliņš follows the latest developments in the Latvian parliament week by week. He is a regular contributor to ir.lv magazine, and he can be heard on ir.lv’s weekly Friday podcast “Šķiltava,” which features a discussion of the previous week’s political and social events.
Friday evening, September 11, at 7:00 p.m. in Umurkumurs at the Latvian Centre in Toronto , Aivars Ozoliņš will give a presentation sharing his views on the parties and candidates. If you won’t be in Toronto, you can participate via Zoom.
On Sunday, September 13, at 12:00 p.m. EDT an pre-election debate organized by the PBLA will take place in Straumēni, United Kingdom. Umbrella organizations, including LNAK, are co-sponsors of these debates. The moderators will be Ilze Nagla, a journalist and former producer and host of the “De facto” television program, along with Agnes Drunka, a TV and radio host. You will be able to watch the debates live on the lsm.lv website. To have the opportunity to watch together and discuss what we’ve heard, we invite Latvian centers to organize “watch parties.” One such event will take place in Hamilton, at the Hamilton Latvian Society, 16 Queen St. N. Aivars Ozoliņš will be in Hamilton to provide commentary and answer questions after the debate. This discussion will be available to everyone via Zoom. Ottawa and Montreal are hoping to hold similar events.
Already this month, on Wednesday, August 19 at 20:00 EDT Viesturs Zariņš will give a Zoom presentation (in Latvian) titled “Overview, Parties, and Voting.” Viesturs, a former member and chair of the LNAK Board of Directors and a member of the PBLA Board of Directors, recently gave this presentation at the 3×3 camp in Garezers, Michigan. We encourage you to join us to refresh your knowledge of the Saeima and the voting process, and to start learning more about the parties’ platforms and their candidates. Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88067830438?pwd=k2v5WUeelna3zZQVMHYTrlfDl6vyeI.1
In early September, we will also offer this presentation in English. Also, on Thursday, September 17, we will be holding an informative session at the Toronto Latvian Pensioner’s Association’s meeting.
Right here on the LNAK website, we have a special section on the 15th Saeima elections: www.lnak.net/latvijas-saeimas-velesanas/
It will be supplemented with information about the voting process, as well as information about the political parties. At the end of this month, we will publish an analytical article commissioned by LNAK and written by ir.lv journalist Pauls Raudseps on the parties’ platforms. A “party sorter” will also be available soon (an interactive tool that will allow you to evaluate a party’s stance on various issues and compare it with your own position). It is being developed by Providus, a non-governmental, non-profit, non-partisan organization.
We would like to thank the Latvian Society Integration Foundation for its financial support, provided from the Latvian state budget, for LNAK’s public information efforts in connection with the elections.
Please start talking to your relatives, friends, and acquaintances about the elections. Perhaps you could give a friend who doesn’t have a car a ride to the polling place? Perhaps in cities where there won’t be a polling station, you could arrange to get together to vote by mail? If you have any questions or suggestions on how we can encourage Latvian citizens residing in Canada to participate in the elections, please email us at admin@lnak.org.
