Chancellor of Justice Ülle Madise highlighted in the context of the mayoral vote at the Tallinn City Council that, according to the Local Government Organization Act and the Charter of Tallinn, the election of the mayor must be secret.

"The purpose of the principle of secrecy is to give voters the freedom to choose according to their conscience. A voter should not be directly or indirectly placed in a situation where their freedom is limited, for example, by the factual obligation to prove how they voted," the chancellor of justice believes.

Madise finds it objectionable to, for instance, photograph one's ballot paper and show the photo to others, as well as to fill out ballot papers according to a predetermined pattern or with different colored pencils.

"The secrecy of voting is both a right and an obligation for the voter. If there is a desire to relinquish the principle of secret voting, the aforementioned laws and regulations must be amended beforehand."

The Center Party suspects that during the Tallinn City Council session on Sunday, where a new mayor and city government were appointed, four ruling coalition parties used marked ballots to understand how their members voted. This would have violated the requirement of voting secrecy.

The pattern observed on the ballots from the third round of the mayoral election suggests that they were deliberately marked, thereby breaching the secrecy of the vote. Images of ballots used seem to confirm that delegates of different factions used different corners of the "for" box (top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right) when ticking it.

As a result of these events, a motion of no confidence was filed against Mayor Jevgeni Ossinovski (SDE) at the city council meeting on Thursday evening. The grounds for the no-confidence motion are cited as the disregard for the principle of secret elections during the mayoral election, which potentially allowed for the influence and pressure on council members.

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