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Patrick Breyer and Pirate Party lose EU Parliament seats
(stackdiary.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
France. The parties have to pay the government if they want their ballot already present at the election place. As a citizen, you may also bring any ballot you want (within some very reasonable rules), so the smaller parties instruct you to print your own to save on costs.
OMG. Here in Germany you sometimes get an entire booklet of ballot papers, if necessary. You wouldn't even be allowed to bring your own ballot. Otherwise, one could secretly mark their own ballot in some way, thereby undermining the secrecy of the vote.
Yeah, this is one of the seasons the Pirate party is pushing for a unique ballot, because the current format is really unfavorable towards small parties that don't have the means to print the ballots among other things