A record number of polling stations abroad—78 in all—will operate July 23 for Latvian citizens to vote in a referendum that could result in dissolution of the parliament, or Saeima.

The Central Election Commission in Rīga announced June 21 that it has approved a Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposal to operate polling stations in 41 countries outside Latvia. In last October’s parliamentary vote, during which the legislators who may now lose their jobs were elected, 64 polling stations operated abroad.

The increase in polling stations is due to not enough time being available for voters abroad to apply for mail ballots, election commission Chairman Arnis Cimdars said in a press release. Applications for mail ballots are due July 1.

The referendum is the result of President Valdis Zatlers calling May 28 for dissolution of the parliament. If the referendum succeeds, the 10th Saeima will be dissolved and new elections will be called. If the referendum fails, according to the Latvian constitution, the president instead must step down. However, in Zatlers’ case that would be moot, because his four-year term expires July 7. Zatlers failed to win re-election during a June 2 vote in the Saeima.

In the United States, polling stations will be open in the embassy in Washington, D.C., and in Latvia’s representative office in New York, as well as in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, St. Petersburg, San Francisco, Seattle, and the Latvian Center Gaŗezers near Three Rivers, Mich.

Voters in Canada will be able to decide on the referendum in the Latvian embassy in Ottawa as well as in polling stations in Toronto and Montréal.

In the United Kingdom, voters in London will be able to visit the Latvian embassy, while additional polling stations will operate in Bradford, Mansfield and Peterborough; in Newry, Northern Ireland; and at the Straumēni rest home in Catthorpe.

Voters in Ireland will be able to cast ballots in the Latvian embassy in Dublin as well as in Limerick.

Denmark for the first time will see two polling stations: one in the Latvian embassy in Copenhagen and another in Vejle in the west central part of the country.

Sweden will see polling stations open in the embassy in Stockholm and in Göteborg.

Voters in Germany will have seven choices: the embassy in Berlin and polling stations in Bonn, Esslingen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and Münster.

In Australia, polling stations are to be open in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.

The other countries where polling stations will be open are Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Chile, China, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.

Polling stations will be open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. local time. Voters must be at least 18 years old and must bring a valid Latvian passport to the polling station.

Vote by mail deadline

Voters will not be in Latvia or cannot visit one of the polling stations abroad will be able to make their referendum choice by mail.

Mail ballot requests must be sent to one of the 23 Latvian embassies or consulates that are handling registrations. The requests must include a completed application form and a valid Latvian passport.

The application form and complete instructions are available on the website of the Central Election Commission.

The election commission also provides a list of the 23 offices accepting mail ballot requests.

The British coast guard has called off a search for a man of Latvian origin who was reported lost at sea June 14 near the southwest coast of the United Kingdom.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency received a distress call at 8:21 a.m. June 14 from the FV About Time, a fishing boat operating out of Milford Haven, according to an agency spokesman.

“There was three crew onboard and they had finished fishing and were heading back to Milford,” the spokesman said in a statement posted on the coast guard’s website. “One of the crewmen was determined to be missing one hour after being last seen by the other two crew.”

Rescue teams in lifeboats and a helicopter, plus 14 other vessels, assisted in the search. The search ended in the afternoon.

“An extensive search has been undertaken by many vessels in the hope of finding this missing fisherman,” said Watch Commander Nigel Yelland of the Milford Haven coast guard office. “Unfortunately, he was not wearing a lifejacket, which could have aided in his survivability in this incident.”

A provisional count of a signature drive shows that no referendum will occur on making Latvian the official language of instruction in state-sponsored schools, say officials of the Central Election Commission in Rīga.

The effort to force a referendum on amending Latvia’s constitution appears to have fallen about 30,000 signatures short of the required 153,232, which represents 10 percent of the number of voters in the last Saeima election.

The signature drive organized from May 11 to June 9 garnered 112,608 signatures, according the election commission spokeswoman Kristīne Bērziņa.

With 29 of 45 locations abroad reporting, another 907 signatures can be added to the count, she said in a June 10 press release.

In addition, the final count is to include 10,140 signatures tallied on the petition that initiated the call for a referendum. The National Alliance (Nacionālā apvienība “Visu Latvijai!” – “Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK”) began collecting signatures last year in an effort to convince lawmakers that Latvian should be the only language of instruction in public schools. The election commission on April 11 ordered the signature campaign after receiving the petition.

If enough signatures had been gathered, then a national referendum would have been held that would have asked voters whether they support proposed changes to the constitution. If the referendum had succeeded, then the Saeima would have been asked to consider a bill to change Section 112 of the constitution.

Section 112 guarantees that all people in Latvia get an education at the primary and secondary levels. The amendment would have stipulated that the guarantee extends to education in the state language, which is Latvian.