The Slovak Statistics office will test the software processing data of the referendum on Slovakia’s membership in the European Union three times before the referendum, Eva Kelemenova from the press department of the Slovak Statistics, told SITA. She said that the first two test will be carried out on April 16 and April 29 at the regional offices of the Statistics Office. The third final test will be carried out on May 13 at the level of district offices. The referendum results will be processed by more about 700 or 800 and the number of computers used for the data processing will be 300. According to Ms. Kelemenova, the results of the referendum should be published after delivery of all records from the district offices in the afternoon on May 18.

The Statistics Office has already developed a schedule for the preparation of the referendum. By March 24 there will be set up centers summarizing referendum results at district level and also a professional summarizing department of the Central Referendum Commission. The Statistics Office in association with the preparation for the upcoming referendum also plans to organize a course for employees of departments that will be summarizing election data about using the new software by April 17.

Slovak President Rudolf Schuster announced a referendum on Slovakia’s European Union entry scheduled for May 16 and 17 on February 17. The wording of the referendum question will be: „Do you agree with the Slovak Republic becoming a member country of the European Union?“.