While, on one hand, the 2022 election year passed in the shadow of failed attempts pertaining to the electoral reform in BiH by bh. politicians and decision-makers, on the other hand, there was a lot of talks in the public about the changes in the electoral process that were introduced as a result of both, the Decision of the High Representative, which adopted the Law on Amendments to the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the changes that resulted through the implementation acts of the Central Election Commission of BiH.
Based on the above mentioned, a noticeable improvements are visible in some segments of the election process compared to the previous election cycles, which happens partly due to the implementation of 14 recommendations of the Coalition “Pod lupom” only for the 2022 General Elections, i.e., a series of technical improvements in the process of voting on Election Day as well as a partial improvements related to polling station committees, public resources and social networks.
However, after the 2022 General Elections, the Coalition “Pod lupom” emphasizes that there is still a lot of work to be done so to improve the electoral process. The Coalition developed a series of recommendations that can be found HERE, but also highlighted its 10 priority recommendations for better elections.
New technologies in the electoral process
- To Introduce machines for scanning ballots (scanners) into the election process or other new technologies that will prevent abuses and prevent violations of the BiH Election Law when determining the will of voters at polling stations on Election Day, while following the standards and criteria of security, feasibility, long-term and profitability of the chosen solution.
- To introduce electronic identification of voters at the polling station.
- To ensure that voting results from the polling station are entered into the CEC’s electronic system (JIIS), immediately after determining the voting results for each level in the elections.
Election administration
- To change the procedure for selecting the president and deputy of the polling station committee in such a way that these are chosen by the municipal/city election commissions based on a public call and criteria to be prescribed by the BiH CEC, and who will be appointed and trained to work over the course of non-election years.
Protection of Electoral Law
- To make it possible for everyone to make an objection on the election process at every stage of the election process.
- To improve the releasing of information on received objections and complaints on the BiH CEC website, in such a way as to create a database that will contain these objections and complains in their original form, along with accompanying decisions on how to act on these objections and complains. Expand the database, i.e., the releasing of information on objections and complaints, so to also include objections sent to the election commissions of the basic constituencies.
Determining the results
- To introduce the obligation so to cancel elections for those polling stations where an excess of ballots is found.
Electoral system
- To lower the intra-party electoral threshold for general elections in BiH to 10% and equalize it with the intra-party electoral threshold for local elections.
- To revise electoral units and the number of mandates for the state and entity parliaments in order to ensure the principle of equality of votes.
Observation of elections
- To simplify the procedure so to accredit civic, non-partisan observers accredited by the BiH CEC by introducing the possibility to submit requests in electronic form. To simplify the prescribed form of accreditations as well as to accelerate the process of issuing them.
