Parliament discovers fingers are safer than computers — Riga still doesn't know what fingers are

Latvia's Parliamentary commission unanimously decided that votes in the upcoming autumn elections will be counted by hand, as computers have become too dangerous. President Rinkēvičs finally understood that a Russian hacker can break into a computer, but cannot break into Māra from Old Town's fingers.

Commission chairman Oļegs Burovs announced that the Central Election Commission could make this decision themselves, but it's better if Parliament does it, as it's more democratic. It's like with the Liepāja Olympic Center pool — one person could swim, but it's better if everyone decides together whether the water is warm enough.

Central Election Commission chairman Māris Zviedris admitted they have no information about compromised systems, but also no information about non-compromised ones, so it's better to be safe. Deputy Kučinskis wondered whether it's really that simple to "count by hand," but no one could explain whether hands need to be washed with soap first.

Deputy Inga Bērziņa stated that in other EU countries votes are counted only manually, so Latvia must follow their example. In Riga, of course, they're still thinking whether this means using all ten fingers or if five is enough. In Liepāja we've known for a long time — the main thing is that fingers are clean and you can count all the way to the end.