BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary's ruling Fidesz party abandoned plans on Friday to force millions of voters to sign up to be able to vote at national elections in 2014, after the country's top court found parts of its proposed reforms unconstitutional.
The Constitutional Court ruling and the retreat represent a major blow to conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who swept to power with a two-thirds majority in 2010 parliamentary elections.
Orban's Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance approved a new voting system in November in one of the most hotly contested steps of a two-year flurry of reforms that included a new constitution and a swathe of laws that critics say entrench Fidesz's power.
The changes proposed by Fidesz and approved in parliament without support of the opposition, would have required 8 million voters to register in person or online at least two weeks before elections in 2014.
Currently, voters only have to turn up at polling stations on election day to be identified from an existing state-run database and cast their vote.
Critics said the measure imposed undue restrictions on a basic tenet of democracy and would discourage large groups of undecided or swing voters from casting their ballot.
(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs and Krisztina Than; Editing by Jon Boyle)
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