Gőgös submitted 181,318 valid signatures, Ilona Pálffy said after the NVI’s final review of the signatures that were ruled invalid in the initial review last month. The politician submitted a total of 27,989 signature-collection forms, 743 of which were rejected due to formal errors.

On the forms that were approved, Gőgös submitted 226,300 signatures. However, 44,982 of them were declared invalid, mainly because the personal details provided by the signees did not correspond to their data in the voter registry. Pálffy said it was not unusual to have 19.88% of the signatures submitted be declared invalid, as they were in this case.

She noted that in a referendum initiated in 2008 by then-opposition Fidesz, the election office threw out between 19-20% of the signatures. András Litresits, the Socialist Party’s delegate, proposed that the NVB should re-review rejected signatures. He also proposed that the committee should make changes to the way it reviews the signatures.

Gőgös vowed to turn to the Kúria, Hungary’s top court, to seek its help to enforce the will of the 20,000 voters “who the NVI couldn’t identify”.

He said the question of the referendum on land sales was already decided on Thursday when government office chief János Lázár said parliament would pass a law officially declaring the end of the farmland auctions in September.

Under Hungary’s referendum law, if the number of supporting signatures collected falls between 100,000 and 200,000 the decision of whether or not to hold the referendum rests with parliament.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.