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SPECIAL EDITION DECEMBER 2021PRIMARYELECTIONS
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 2 -The Most Important FactsAbout the Primary ElectionsSeptember 20 - October 17, 2021were organizedThe rst nationalprimaries in Hungaryin 2 rounds.Participants could vote for opposition candidates based on their permanent address,as prime ministerial candidatesPrimary voters could cast their vote atpolling stations and online for more than8002 weeks.secured the authenticity and civil society control of voting and vote counting.Organizing and implementation took place throughout the ELEVE voting application,developed by aHang (theVoice). Civil society activists and parties relied on their own resourcesin controlling the entire process of the primary elections, without state support.Voter turnout was several times more than anticipated, as many ason paper and online.10 thousand volunteersand 1000 online operators850 thousand votersparticipated in the elections.
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 3 -CONTENTS01ForewordPAGE 403OrganizingPAGE 902PoliticsPAGE 6Finances06PAGE 23Media05PAGE 2004TechnologyPAGE 15 Check out our documentary film! Click to jump to the video!
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 4 -PRIMARY ELECTIONS?WHO ELSE IF NOT US?Máté VargaExecutive DirectoraHangFOREWORD01The 2019 Budapest mayoral primary elections brought diverseand manifold experiences for the team of aHang, whicheventually strengthened our conviction that in an irregulardemocratic environment we must achieve positive change byirregular means.When, in 2019, the task was outlined that an independent andimpartial organizer would be necessary for the competition ofthe parties and candidates, civil society did not rush to help.The number of non-governmental organizations that had boththe willingness and ability to organize all the tasks, includingthe technology, the communication and the organization of theactivists, was even smaller. It wasn’t an easy decision for useither. Not even when we considered that with ourcontribution, at last a real election could take place and thatwe could give a real and important decision into the hands ofthose living in the capital city, exercising independent andnon-governmental control over an important and modernpolitical process. The risk was just too great. The deadlineswere impossible, the tasks were too complicated, and inaddition to the lack of experience, guidelines and resources,we also had to plan and work together with parties who werehostile to each other in a political and societal environmentwhere fear penetrated everything and everybody had long losttheir faith in change.But, after all, it seemed like a job for us, and we decided to havea go with it.
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 5 -Máté Varga, aHang's executive director, at the press conference closing the counting of votes and theprimary elections on October 17, 2020.Probably most of you already know the story,so maybe it’s enough to say that it was worthit. In addition to the obvious results, perhaps afew words could be said about why. Because astir occurred. A stir that pointed beyond theopponent of Budapest Mayor István Tarlós, the‘central force eld,’ the parties competing witheach other, the use of media in politics, thepartisanship and the polarization. Symbolsappeared, ideas, plans and political programswere presented, meaningful political debatesoccurred, thousands of volunteers andactivists worked on the streets, we sawpositive messages, political gestures,acknowledgement and cooperation, whichattracted the voters too. After the 2019Budapest mayoral primary elections wealready felt that an even greater enterprisewas waiting for us in 2021. This primaryelections special issue is about the story ofthis enterprise and the way we have preparedfor it.
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 6 -POLITICAL DIMENSIONS& ORGANIZATIONALCOOPERATIONPOLITICS02aHang and the Six-Party National Primary ElectionCommittee (OEVB)aHang rst reached out to the operative leaders of the six-party opposition in November 2020 in order to startpreparation together for the 2021 primaries. Throughout theconsultations we presented those developments and possibledirections which had kept us engaged ever since the 2019Budapest primary elections, using the experiences. Followingmonths of internal negotiations, the six-party cooperationfounded the National Primary Election Committee (OEVB) inthe spring of 2021, while aHang got the opportunity to becomea seventh member and so, a permanent invitee to the process.One of the greatest challenges was accomplishing theacceptance, by all six parties, of fully online voting that doesnot require in-person turnout. After long and often stressfulnegotiations we achieved the approval of an online election byOEVB and also a unique QR code on the paper ballots issued byaHang to curb electoral fraud. Another important developmentof ours facilitating implementation was the administrationsystem which handled the daily schedule and login data of theThe work of approximately ten thousand peoplehad to be coordinated during the two rounds ofthe primary elections.
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 7 -The participating six parties created a body, the National Primary Election Committee (OEVB), tocoordinate the primaries, to organize its operations and to make decisions. We have interviewedOEVB members about cooperation, organization and diculties, and the role of civil activists. ClickPlay to view the embedded YouTube video.Naturally, there were times when we neededto use tactics (sometimes we prepared forhours for certain consultations), or we had toreach a compromise, or even to deal withextremely differing opinions, putting at riskour very participation in the primaries. Wewere on the razor's edge. It was extremelyimportant all along to provide the opportunityto vote to as many people as possible, and thisled to the fully online voting option (withabsolutely no need for oine registration)which we regarded as essential. In case thesix-party cooperation had not accepted this,aHang wouldn’t have taken part in organizingthe primary elections.The Role of Civil Society Partners and Groupsin the PrimariesThe Civil Society Election Commission (CVB),which was in charge of the external control ofthe primary elections and had been brought tolife to support the organizing back in 2019,carried on working with new memberorganizations in 2021.activists, both party-related and civil society,making sure only the individuals assigned acertain time and location used the tablets andsmartphones needed for personal voting.The elaboration of the election scheme wasmostly a joint effort by OEVB and aHang,including steps such as:◆ online and oine voting processes;◆ coordination of activists, designation oftasks, provision of trainings;◆ purchase of equipment, logistics;◆ management and technical background ofvote counting (together with the Let's CountIt Together movement).The members of OEVB also mention how muchit meant to have the cooperation of NGOs,and that without them, it wouldn’t have beenpossible, or only in a much less ecient way,to organize the very rst Hungarian nationalprimaries.All in all, we can conclude that the half-year-long consultation with the parties was reallyhard and complex but, eventually, rewarding.
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 8 -Without the sacrice of civil society partners,the primary electionscould not have taken place.Counting votes following the rst roundThe member organizations of CVB joined inbased on their original eld and helped withthe organizing and socializing of theprimaries, focusing on the following:◆ The Taboo Monitoring Oce is a platformmade up of students and young adults whoorganized 22 public debates in the 22electoral districts of Hungary.◆ The recruiter of civil society vote counters,the “Let’s Count It Together” movement,prepared and organized part of the NGOactivists who counted the votes.◆ The “Print It Yourself!” movement published106 primary election issues and spreadthem around the country where the leastinformation was available.◆ Dr György Magyar, the president of CVBprovided information about the primariesand the most important updates intelevision and radio interviews.◆ The Phoenix Movement, the Civil Society forDemocracy Association and the membersof ALLOY helped the election process byproviding activists and professionalmaterials.
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 9 -LET’S GET ORGANIZED!ORGANIZING03Recruitment of Volunteers & Organization ofCoordinators’ Network and Poll ClerksThroughout the primaries we made a point of encouragingwidespread participation of civil society in the electionprocess. The control provided by civil society guaranteed themaintenance of fair play and represented a way of connectingto the campaign for those who were ready to step up for thechange of Hungarian politics while not having the intention tocommit to a single party or candidate.Our public recruitment program for volunteers started with theJanuary 13, 2021 video of the Partizán YouTube channel, alongwith the creation of the 25-person coordinators network.Though nding the coordinators took longer than planned - 2months -, later it became clear that it was worth the time. Avery special team of outstanding, devoted and conscientiouspeople gathered.Following the selection process, the rst personal meeting ofregional coordinators took place at the end of April 2021 andthe preparations for the summer season began. As a rst step,together we planned a pyramid-shaped communicationstructure which enabled members to share information andtasks effectively. The job of the 25 regional coordinators werebacked up by four central coordinators on behalf of aHangfrom Budapest; while locally, in the electoral constituencies
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 10 -background, the logistics and the technicalassistance needed for the Fudan-consultation. The experiences gained herehave proved to be really useful later, duringthe primaries.At the end of June, following the Fudanconsultation, we had the opportunity to hold atwo-day intense preparation for theprimaries. The team building weekend tookplace in Kunbábony where, besides attendingworkshops and drawing up the campaign, thecoordinators could meet some of the membersof the National Primary Election Committee.This weekend spent in Kunbábony was one ofthe most important milestones of organizingthe activists. It was then that the NationalFirst meeting of the coordinatorsThe success of the primaries is the success of the cooperation of severalthousand party and civil society activists. Civil society and politicalorganizations teamed up and achieved something of national and historicalimportance through extraordinary challenges.so-called ‘super volunteers’ took care ofcoordination and recruitment.The regional coordinators were responsiblefor the recruitment of civil society volunteersand their involvement in the primariescampaign, and for preparing applicants forthe tasks of poll clerking and counting votes.Our team thus expanded by 30 membersworked on conducting the Fudan consultation(June 4-13, 2021) whereby we tested theELEVE e-voting platform, developed by us,which served as a technical base for theprimaries. Teaming up with the group ofvolunteers in charge of the online customerservice, we provided the organizational
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 11 -Capacity planning for something you’ve never done is hard - and we hadabsolutely no clue as to how many people would take part in the primaryelections (we would have been more than satised with 300 thousandvoters).The feeling of gratitude for having been able to take part in the primaries was tangibleamong both young and elderly even through video calls, all around the country.Primary Election Oce and aHang startedtheir cooperation on an operative level, and atthe same time, coordinators from all aroundHungary, who had not known each otherbeforehand, formed a most cohesive anddetermined team.Over July and August, the regionalcoordinators got even busier: they had toarrange the preparation of as many as 2000civil society activists. Our goal was to delegatecivil society poll clerks to each polling stationand time slot. For this we needed tosynchronize work with the Local PrimaryElection Committees made up of partyactivists.The team responsible for the coordination hadto be available day in, day out, from thebeginning of September until the end ofOctober. The political events which occurredduring the two rounds of the primaries and theunpredictable changes and tasks they broughtabout required even more exibility andgreater constructiveness on behalf of allparticipants. The framework we worked inwas in constant transition and the activists atthe polling stations ended up facing all thetension. We cannot be grateful enough tothem and we are sure that their perseverance,commitment and faith put in the institution ofthe primary elections have dened theiroutcome.An Unexpected Challenge in the Processof Conducting the Primary ElectionsAccording to our original plan, the volunteerswere to do the online operator job ofidentication remotely from home but adecision by OEVB made it necessary to haveoperators physically in one place so that party
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 12 -delegated supervisors could keep an eye onthe transparency of the elections - both in reallife and online.It was also impossible to guess the number ofpeople inclined to vote online - and thiselement of uncertainty required a quickresponse on our side. The operation centertaking care of the identication process of theonline election grew out three venues (ofgradually increasing size).The identication took place 9AM to 9PMexcept the last days of the two rounds whenvoters were welcome from 8AM to 8PM. Thismeant that about a dozen people had to work1+12+1 hours for the smooth running of theoperation centers: they had to arrive an hourbeforehand and stay another hour afterwardsto put all devices on a charger, sort documentsout and tidy up.Though the role of an operator may seem to besimple, we had to provide training for eachnewcomer. This was rst made more effectiveby homemade teaching aid, and then, later, byMomentum-designed materials.We decided to keep the shifts exible as evenone or two hours of help from someone couldsave the day. And it happened many times,people showing up at the end of an 8-hourworkday, after only a couple of bites to stay forsome more work until 9 or 10PM. Thisexibility was of great advantage and, ofcourse, some disadvantage, too: newoperators could show up anytime - meaning,there was always someone in need of training.Each operator needed three things: a laptopor tablet, an Android smartphone or tablet andearphones with a microphone. Each operatorneeded to have at least one Android device tobe able to use the eVOL phone application, apart of the ELEVE toolkit. The app needed tobe installed (and constantly updated) onhundreds of devices. About 200 devices had tobe connected to the WiFi network while thenetwork itself needed to be running.Have you ever tried buying and delivering 70pieces of anything larger than a tennis ball?We have - mobile phones, tablets (andearphones). Earphones were OK but setting upa mobile or tablet took 5-10 minutes each.We had a contract signed by every operator,and issued an ID password and a schedule fora booked period to prepare them for work. Attimes, thirty operators turned up at oncewhich required quick realization of thesituation and even quicker reactions.Final meeting with the coordinators
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 13 -THE MAJOR STEPS OF ORGANIZINGVOLUNTEERSJanuary 13, 2021:aHang introduces the ELEVE e-votingsoftware in Partizán and announces volunteerapplication for the primariesMarch-April, 2021:recruitment and appointment of regionalcoordinatorsApril 27, 2021:the rst team building event of regionalcoordinators in BudapestMay 21, 2021:the ocial kick-start of cooperation betweenthe Civil Society Election Commission and theNational Primary Election Committee aboutorganizing the primariesJune 4-13, 2021:conducting the Fudan consultation withopposition partiesJune 26-27, 2021:campaign preparation weekend involving theregional coordinators & rst in-personmeeting of regional coordinators and theNational Primary Election CommitteeJuly 30, 2021:the beginning of the joint operative work of theregional coordinators and the Local PrimaryElection CommitteesAugust 23, 2021:collection of recommendations and thebeginning of the preparation of civil societyand party poll clerks.team which was small but all the better-trained through the Fudan consultations.Naturally, it was easier for us to plan ahead ifsomeone had let us know about theirwillingness to volunteer in advance - in thiscase we could prepare their user ID and givethem a schedule beforehand. Some spent longhours each evening planning the shifts ofothers for the next day and providing accessto the system. At the same time (all the time, tobe precise) at least three different mailboxeshad to be constantly checked, ones where theoperators corresponded about who wasn’tgoing to turn up, who needed different workhours, or who was going to stay all day insteadof just a few hours.All operation centers (regardless whether 30or 180 operators were working together at atime) needed at least two people whounderstood the system well and could providehelp - not to mention the system breakdownsdue to cyber attacks. In such cases, errornotications kept coming in to the operatorswhich made constant correction and makingfunctional changes necessary. And, of course,they had to be informed about all this on thego.This was just one part of the tasks - and,though, it may not seem so much, it was quitea challenge to get a message through (e.g.about a WiFi password) to everyone involvedwhen you had 1500 people turning up during aday, with as many as 200 people working atthe same time.The circle of our most reliable partners keptchanging - it is probably not a secret that of allthe parties it was Momentum who put anextreme amount of effort and resources intothe online voting. After the results of the rstround were announced, at aHang we got a bithesitant - we hoped to pass on the duties atthe operation center to Dialogue for Hungaryand so we started to collect the knowledgeaccumulated so far. This was followed byGergely Karácsony’s withdrawal of candidacy- and Momentum taking Péter Márki-Zay’sside, and so the two teams already incooperation could carry on.Emails came in every minute regarding theways of online and oine voting, the technicalproblems or the attacks. The thousands ofcomplaints and questions were answered by a
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 14 -During the second round of the elections weinterviewed two organizers of aHang at thecoordination headquarters. Click play for theembedded YouTube video (only in Hungarian).
CONSTANT REMODELINGTECHNOLOGY04The necessary technological background for the primaryelections was realized as a result of a long research andplanning process. We compared Hungarian and foreignrecommendations to our own design which was previouslyused and tested at the 2019 mayoral primary, and this is howwe arrived at a universally outstanding solution. We couldhave used more guidelines but could not wait any longer forthe consensual creation of political expectations. Regardlessof how much we were pushing decision-makers, we weremostly left guessing and assuming what the nal expectationswould be.Fortunately, these minor questions did not change the solidstructural base of ELEVE’s ballot system. The different ways ofidentication are closely connected to the polling system itself- and still, they are just tiny bits of the complex platform thatmakes running the system possible. The transparency of theelections needed to be provided at more than 500 pollingstations, including having representatives of parties ofconicting interests around at all times, avoiding unwantedballot papers getting in the ballot boxes, strictly sticking to theocial opening hours of the stations, taking care of the log-inpasswords, etc. Without our ELEVE platform, all this would nothave been plannable or possible.There was a designated resource management subsystemavailable to the coordinators from all participatingorganizations. This was to automatically and self-evidentlymake conicting interests a token of transparency. Naturally,all this was done in a manner that the members of partyorganizations did not have access to the personal data of theirrivals’ activists. Activists only had free access to theAngiulli Enzo, author of the ELEVE platform
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 16 -unauthenticated ballots and the fake voteswouldn’t be counted.- During the count, poll clerks aren’tauthorized to “select” the ballots they like. Asthe date and place of voting is registered bysystem at the authentication, they need to bematching at the count, too. And here we are atvote counting - ELEVE also supports oinecounting. When processing ballots, the rststep was always scanning QR-codes so thatthe poll clerks could make sure that the ballotshadn’t been victim to fraud and they couldplace them in the pile they belonged toaccording to the cast vote. Failed or invalidballots had to be separated. Scanning meantan extra task but it was worth the effort – forthe reasons explained above. As soon as thecontents of a ballot box got counted, the chairsof vote counting committees entered theresults in ELEVE’s vote tallying module. In thisway, OEVB could always keep up with the realtime updates as the votes were beingprocessed.Voters’ Trust and Political TrustWe had several theoretical dilemmas to face:do we need ranked, a.k.a. preferential, voting?Shall we use blockchain technology toguarantee that the votes don’t get changedaround in the system? What if the partiesrefuse the ELEVE app, even though it provedto be a success during the Fudan vote? Itwould be nice to have a “notice board” whereentitlements prescribed to them in theirschedule, and only at times appointed by thecoordinators. High-responsibility tasksrelated to poll clerking, identifying voters andvote counting were solely available throughthe EVOL app, which runs on Android devicesand communicates with the ELEVE backend,the brain of the platform through a securechannel.The QR-code placed on ballot papersinterested many. Why was it necessary?Doesn’t it put transparency at risk if eachballot paper has a unique code? - many mighthave asked. QR-codes served as sort of digitalseals. The ballot paper is not connected to thevoter’s person, yet it guarantees precisetracking all along the election process. Thisrules out all standard election fraud methodswithout the system registering the cast votes.For example:- If anyone was to place photocopied ballotpapers in the ballot box, it wouldn’t makemuch difference as the EVOL app wouldindicate the problem, and the votes cast onthe photocopied ballots wouldn’t be counted.As the ballot boxes get processed inchronological order, only the original ballotwould count.- In case someone got hold of ballot papersand tried to rig the voting by smuggling theminto the ballot box, the system would noticethe problem at the count as they wereBallots with QR-codeQR-code scanning at the vote count
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 17 -everyone could check if they have voted andwhether their vote is valid. But woulddecision-makers really agree to this?IT people in their right mind wouldn’t haveput up with the level of uncertainty that onlythrough a series of gradually more frequentmeetings with OEVB decreased somewhat;in ways that curbed innovation, most of thetime. And surprises followed - in the middleof summer, while organizing familyprograms, we had to realize that we wouldneed to forget about voting based onidentication through the governmental“Client Gate” portal and the ELEVE mobileapp. Even if this solution had alreadyproven safe and swift in the case of theFudan consultation, this time we had to getthe video identication system ready in ahurry, which so far had been a backup planonly.One could say that this was a great way totrain for real situations – which is wellillustrated by the set of constantly rollingchallenges related to the operator system.Momentum was most helpful while thevideo identication system was taking itsrst baby steps but we were still working24/7 in an attempt to cover up all theproblems that surfaced in the meantime(running tests constantly, looking for errors,making corrections etc). We were hoping tond an external partner for the videoidentication but we completely understoodthat not all operators were willing to showup in the video calls in person, which led tosome more problem solving and thecomplete redrawing of plans.Challenges sprouted - our developmentswhich were based on a controlled physicalenvironment (20 operators with devices andphones) had to be redesigned in the space ofjust a few days so that 200 operators couldcater for the needs of online voters whilerelying on their own devices. It soon becameclear that we had seriously underestimatedthe resources needed for the online election.“Technically speaking”, this meant that we hadto purchase hundreds of mobile phones,tablets and earphones, and set up appropriatewireless networks in several venues. At thesame time, the distribution of devices neededa plan, while we needed to trust the previouslyrealized security solutions of our own, whichweren’t set to carry out online identicationfrom just any given device.Registering the operators at the onlineidentication, a constantly changing range ofvolunteers and contracted student workers,and authorizing and making the schedule forthe usage of devices – these were the tasksthat kept us and the party activists busy allday – and also at night.The daily complex trainings before work couldnot have been spared either - as many as15-20 crash courses took place a day to helpPrecise settings were one of the keysto QR-scanningOperators identifying online votersat Villányi Road
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 18 -the new operators handle the system, and tokeep them informed about the order of things.We ended up in quite a situation! Besidesrunning the system against constantcyberattacks, we had to improve thesubsystem daily, keep testing and applycorrections.A Case StudyOne part of the online identication wasestablishing the authenticity of data - forwhich we used the address database of thecentral governmental client portal “ClientGate”. Here we could check if the providedinformation was correct - but from onesecond to the next the service became shakyuntil it broke down altogether.Our team had to gure out the solution andadjust it to the mobile app version foroperators on the go, as well as to pass on thenew working mode to almost 1500 operators -a bit like changing the steering gear in a carwhile driving.It was team work of the most complex kindwhere a handful of people brainstormed anddelivered solutions. We are immenselygrateful for all the professional help wereceived from volunteers, contractedcolleagues, co-workers, friends and fellowghters.The frequent moment of opening a ballot box
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 19 -ELEVEOnlineOineTHE ORGANIZER OF ORGANIZERS◆ It takes several players working in synchronicity to run anelection successfully. There are designated modules /components which provide management andcommunication solutions for the organizing of participants.Handling the schedules and managing the volunteers takesplace on multiple levels. Communication takes placethrough mobile applications, emails and text messages.Local coordinators organize and support each otherthrough a co-working space. Dealing with problems andquestions coming from voters is aided by a supportticketing system.CERTIFIED IDENTIFICATION◆ Establishes voter eligibilityby checking personal datain person, via thegovernmental Client Gateportal or live videoconnection.OFFLINE VOTING◆ The system producesdigitally certied, print-ready ballots which fullyprevent electoral fraud.◆ Counting of ballotshappens broken down byballot boxes, through arigorous accountingprocedure provided by adesignated internalapplication.KNOWLEDGE BASE ANDTRAININGS◆ For those taking part inorganizing the electionthere are written and videomaterials available abouteach and every role, as wellas training materialsdeveloped for the purpose.STATISTICS, REAL TIMETRACKING◆ Safe operation issupported by long-rangesurveillance mobiledevices and real timereports. If needed, APIaccess is available to reachinformation regarding theelection, strengtheningtrust through fact-basedcommunication.VOTINGWITHAN APPLICATION◆ Voting made possible in theiPhone and Androidcompatible ELEVE app.◆ Automatic Client Gateidentication to guaranteeauthenticity of data.◆ Extremely resource-friendly.HYBRID SYSTEMELEVE has been developed by aHang and it stands out eveninternationally. It is a toolkit suitable for all sorts of votingwhich covers the management of the processes, tools, andpeople needed for conducting oine and online voting. Whendesigning it, it was important to apply internationally approvedgood practices in the areas of safety, providing various ways ofelectoral authentication, and securing complete anonymity. Acondential system was created which does not linkindividuals to their votes.ELEVEOnlineand/or oinevoting platform
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 20 -COMMUNICATION & MEDIAMEDIA05Campaign CommunicationsBased on the decision of the six-party coalition, the parties didnot prepare any kind of major campaign to “mobilize themasses.” Every party endorsed the primary elections usingtheir own brand among their own supporters mainly, andthrough their own candidates. For this reason, we decided tolaunch a crowdfunded campaign to address citizens open tothe primaries, and mobilize them to participate. The nationalmobilization campaign titled “I Invite You to Live!” (Élni hívlak!)let millions know about the primaries.During the two rounds of the primaryelections, 700 billboards were put upacross Hungary, reaching hundreds ofthousands
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 21 -We made a crowdfunded video clip in which several well-known artists and scientists called onpeople to vote.Through our webshop (in return for a nancialcontribution) and with the help of our activists,we delivered primaries-related campaignmerchandize (badges, banners, car magnets,stickers, canvas tote bags, pens and doorhangers) to thousands of people across thecountry: tamogass.ahang.hu/boltMotivational and tutorial videos, and onlinebanners were made and advertised acrosssocial media, video sharing platforms, newswebsites and search engines.The tune of “I Invite to Live!”, with a voicemessage from actor and activist Áron Molnár(noÁr), was delivered to more than 600thousand people through automated calls allaround the country, especially in thecountryside.Besides all this, we spread the word about ourwebsite előválasztás.hu on as manyplatforms as possible, guiding hundreds ofthousands of people to it. We also had adedicated Facebook page to provide updatesand news regarding the primaries.Crisis CommunicationSeptember 18th brought something that wehad expected, but only as a worst casescenario. On September 17th between 7 and9PM temporary anomalies occurred in theaccess of our servers at one of the Hungarianservice providers, and from about 8AM on the18th they started getting worse until theycaused the complete inaccessibility of thesystem by 10AM. In the meantime, the ITpeople from aHang and the parties, assistedby cyber defense experts, were analyzing thesituation based on the available information.Since the problem could not be fully identied,they decided to have the system migratedaway, which the team started immediately.Following that, the OEVB decided to suspendthe primaries until the following Monday,which was a good decision. In less than 36hours the aHang-Momentum-Jobbik IT crewgot the system up and running again in a newenvironment. Undoubtedly, those few dayshave been the most stressful period in thehistory of aHang so far.It was a great challenge in the sense of mediacommunication too. We opted for full
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 22 -media representative left without rst-hand notice about thesituation.At last, we managed to tackle the problem. It is a little knownfact, though, that we were under constant attack, even duringthe second round. We had to work all day to tackle newer andnewer attacks that were becoming increasingly sophisticated.Luckily, the public did not notice most of it.transparency by starting aconstantly updated blog entrywhere everyone could followup on the latest/ongoingevents:Furthermore, we were in thecenter of media attention allthe time. On one occasion, 25missed calls came in fromdifferent journalists in thespace of a 30-minuteinterview - and we only had asingle person in the team forthis task. We found itextremely important to keepreporters informed in themiddle of the crisis, and doingso, there was hardly anyhttps://ahang.hu/ddosThe truthabout the seriesof cyberattackscarried outagainst the primaries- the way we see itand how much we can see:RussiaMoldaviaColumbiaHondurasKenyaMoroccoUzbekistanUAEKazakhstanFinlandUkraineIndonesiaUSAThailandTaiwanMexicoBelizeFrancePolandMalaysiaGermanyGreeceBrazilItalyChina(The list of countries in the infographic is by no means an indication ofwhich countries would have intentionally got involved in the primaries.)Gergely Hajdú as crisis communicator
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 23 -WHAT HAVE WE SPENTDONATIONS ON?FINANCES06aHang (Magyarhang Nonprot Ltd.) collected as much as71.065.340 HUF from micro and medium donations to coverthe expenses of the 2021 primary elections.For the realization we did not accept donation from parties,party foundations or politicians.The funds raised did not cover the entire budget, and we partlyrelied on savings and other projects.The amount that came from small and medium donations wasmanaged on a separate sub-account that served as the sourcefor the majority of the expenses. (A lot of these materialized inthe form of bank card transactions, which belong to our mainaccount, and were, therefore, kept track of separately.)
PRIMARY ELECTIONS SPECIAL EDITION- 24 -37,9%0,3%0,6%1,0%5,6%6,4%9,5%11,0%27,7%lmmaking, video production, “I Invite You to Live!” campaign, billboardsthe wages of national and regional coordinators, transport faresonline advertising (social media and other)printing fees, leaets and brochures, banners, marketing devicesmobile phone campaigns for mobilizationpurchasing devices – tablets, smartphones, headsets, etc.events, venue rentals, trainingssoftware developmentbanking feesThe use of the 71.065.340 HUF displayed in percentages: approx. 200.000 Euros
We would like to take this opportunity to onceagain congratulate the candidates andwinners who have attended the rst andsecond round of the primaries.It was totally thrilling to witness the wholething, but for us the most important part ishaving people regained faith in democraticways of election, and realize that cutting-edgeInternet technologies can be used asauthentic means of political self-expression.Many of us had long been looking forward tothis breakthrough. We were aware thatamong people in the most remote villages, andamong those social distancing during thetimes of the pandemic, there are countlessindividuals who want more rights and actualinvolvement in matters of common interest.More than just signing petitions.Being able to provide the conditions ofparticipation in the primaries, as widespreadas possible, was worth all our work andinvestment. Several elderly and young voters,and those who live in far-away corners of thecountry, praised how special it felt to take partin the process. And there must also be a greatnumber of people who did not want thisproject to succeed and tried everything toprevent it from happening in the mostunexpected ways.They failed this time.They failed due to the professionalcooperation of the organizers, and moreimportantly, those more than 850 thousandvoters who did not let the primaries go,despite all the attacks. We would love to thankthem, thank you, dear primary voters forputting your trust in the institution and theorganizers of the primary elections!We also owe a debt of gratitude to:◆ the National Primary Election Committee,the National Primary Election Oce andthe Civil Society Election Commission;◆ the membership of aHang who raisedapproximately 70 million HUF for therealization of the primary and aided theprocess in several other ways;◆ aHang staff, the national and regionalcoordinators and those more than 2000volunteers who made this successpossible.We have written history, and the special needsof Hungary’s rst primary elections have setthe standard really high. No credible online oroine elections have taken place before inHungary with the participation of 850thousand people, and this success and trustcan rightly make us all feel good about thisachievement.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTJoyful moment after the last votehad been cast
Balla-Schottner Bence's photo - UnsplashONE-TIME DONATION:https://tamogass.ahang.hu/donateRECURRING DONATION:https://tamogass.ahang.hu/donate?recurring=1Hungarian democracy needs our work,and our work needs a lot of support.Do you care even a bit about it?It would be so wonderfulif you could chip-in and supportthe rebuilding of Hungarian democracy.
Photos:László Tikk,Róbert Bordás,András Farkas,Gergely Hajdú,Bence Balla-SchottnerÁron BaloghVideo:Róbert BordásPublisher:Magyarhang Nonprot KFT.1071 Budapest, 52. Damjanich utca Floor 4./ 1.Company registry no.: 01-09-320321Tax number: 26253851-1-42.Order a printed version of ourprimary elections special edition!Click here for detailsWhat went on behind the scenes of the opposition primaryelections? The aHang team shot a lm about DDOS attacks,coordinating many thousands of activists, and two cars breakingdown and almost derailing the primaries. Click to watch! and select subtitles