Around ten people have been summoned to answer questions when the Court of the Faroe Islands hears an unusual criminal case on Thursday and Friday.
It concerns a cross on a ballot. And whether fraud was committed in the municipal election on November 12, 2024.
A man who was chairman of the electoral board in a settlement in Runavik Municipality is accused of having distorted the outcome of the election.
The instrument of the alleged crime was a pencil.
When the voters had voted, the man took the ballots home. He had the ballots with him in a carrier bag.
But at some point between 8 p.m. on November 12 and the next morning, he must have put an extra cross on one of the ballots, the prosecution claims.
And this had a "decisive influence" on the election result, the indictment reads.
Because of the two crosses, the ballot was declared invalid during the recount on November 13.
The election board then found that two candidates had received the same number of votes. And it ended up that lots were drawn between the two for the seat on the municipal council.
The defendant pleads not guilty.
His defense attorney, attorney Christian Fribjart Andreasen, does not want to go into details before the court hearings.
- But we have asked to question two people about what they observed during the voting process and the vote counting, he says.
The process involved several authorities and also led to the filing of a civil lawsuit.
Last November, the Ministry of Justice took the decision that the prosecution had decided to press charges.
The election in Runavik Municipality was annulled, and at the same time, a new election should be held in the entire municipality, the ministry decided.
Several things were at stake, the ministry stated.
Firstly, there was the consideration of legal certainty for the person whose vote had been declared invalid.
And secondly, the citizens' general trust in the democratic system was also challenged - "including that elections are conducted without fraud and that complaints are taken seriously", as it was phrased.
Five members of the municipal council strongly disagreed with that decision. They then went to court with a claim that the decision to hold a new election is invalid.
In connection with this dispute, the court has issued a ruling that also mentions the Faroese Police's investigation of the criminal case.
It turns out that police specialists at the National Forensic Science Center in Denmark have had the ballot paper under scrutiny. It did not have two crosses. There was also a dot or a period.
A statement on the handwriting examinations states that the crosses, both made in pencil, do not resemble each other.
"The two crosses are thus placed in two different ways, which would immediately appear to be an unnatural writing rhythm. However, it cannot be determined with certainty whether the two crosses were placed by the same person, who in that case has changed his writing style after the first cross was placed, or whether the two crosses were placed by two different people, each with their own writing style."
The criminal case demands that the defendant be sentenced to imprisonment.
/ritzau/
