Final Word from Thursday, October 1, 2020

An estimated 20% of the 16,000 people in quarantine used drive-in voting yesterday for taking part in the regional and Senate elections. A special law was passed on Aug. 20 to make this possible, because under the existing electoral rules, anyone in quarantine or isolation for health reasons was banned from voting. Interior Min. Jan Hamáček used Twitter in July to alert people to this and then reminded his colleagues during debate in Parliament in Aug. that several elections had already occurred under these rules without any objections from anyone. Restrictions on the voting rights of those in quarantine were made for the purpose of protecting the health of the general population, he said, and certainly not to engage in any unconstitutional deprivation of someone's rights. He assured his colleagues that even after passing the law to allow those in quarantine because of covid-19 to vote, those with highly contagious diseases - tuberculosis, hepatitis - still wouldn't be allowed to. [ Czech Republic jaundice minister ČSSD ]