of § 156(1) of the Constitution, pursuant to which the elections of a local government council shall be general, uniform and direct. The principle of uniform elections, being one of the pillars of democratic statehood, means that all voters must have equal possibilities to influence the voting results. In the context of active right to vote the principle of uniformity primarily means that all persons with the right to vote must have equal number of votes and that all votes must have equal weight upon deciding the division of seats in a representative body. 17. Pursuant to Recommendation Rec(2004)11 of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers to member states on legal, operational and technical standards of e-voting (hereinafter ‘Standards of e-voting') the principle of uniform suffrage in the context of e-voting means four requirements. Firstly, it should be guaranteed that a voter shall be prevented from inserting more than one ballot into the electronic ballot box, and that a voter shall be authorised to vote only if it has been established that his/her ballot has not yet been inserted into the ballot box (§ 5). Secondly, the e-voting system shall prevent any voter from casting a final vote by more than one voting channel (§ 6). Thirdly, every vote deposited in an electronic ballot box shall be counted, and each vote cast in the election or referendum shall be counted only once (§ 7). Fourthly, where electronic and non-electronic voting channels are used in the same election or referendum, there shall be a secure and reliable method to aggregate all votes and to calculate the correct result (§ 8). All the requirements are aimed at guaranteeing that only one vote per voter is taken into account upon electronic voting. Although the Recommendation of the Council of Europe is not a legally binding document, it summarises the understanding of the democratic states of Europe of the conformity of electronic voting with the election principles inherent to democratic states, and it is thus an appropriate tool for interpreting the Constitution. 18. Pursuant to § 1(2) of the Local Government Council Election Act each voter shall have one vote. Pursuant to § 17 of the Contested Act the LGCEA shall be supplemented with § 531, subsection (1) of which of establishes that when a voter has given several votes electronically, the last vote shall be taken into account. Pursuant to subsection (4) of the same section, if a voter has voted both electronically and by a ballot paper, the ballot paper shall be taken into account (the principle of supremacy of ordinary voting). 19. Within the system of electronic voting the taking into account of only one vote per voter is guaranteed by a system similar to the so called system of two envelopes, used upon voting outside the polling division of one's residence during advance polls. Upon voting by electronic means a voter makes his or her choice, which shall be encoded (placed in a so called inner envelope). Thereafter the voter shall approve the choice by his or her digital signature, which means that personal data is added to the encoded vote (so called outer envelope). The personal data and the encoded vote shall be stored together until the counting of votes on the election day, with the aim of ascertaining that the person has given only one vote. The personal data of a voter and the vote given by the voter shall be separated after the fact that the voter has given only one vote has been checked and repeated votes have been eliminated. It is possible to open the so called inner envelope only after the personal data added to encoded vote have been separated with the help of a key given only to the members of the National Electoral Committee, after the polling divisions have been closed. Thus, the system of electronic voting guarantees that only one vote per voter shall be taken into account, ensuring, at the same time, that the voting remains secret. 20. Upon weighing the effect of the possibility to change an electronic vote on the weight of the vote given by a voter, the Chamber points out that in the case of repeated voting the votes given earlier shall be annulled. Despite the repeated electronic voting a voter has no possibility to affect the voting results to a greater degree than those voters who use other voting methods. A vote given by electronic means shall be counted as one vote and from the point of view of voting results this vote is in no manner more influential than the votes given by voters using other voting channels. 21. Pursuant to the petition of the President of the Republic the violation of uniformity of voting also consists in the fact that a voter voting by electronic means is accorded advantages - through the possibility to change the vote for unlimited number of times - in comparison with the voters voting through other channels, as the latter lack the possibility to vote again or vote differently. This interpretations renders the