The Coalition for Free and Fair Elections “Pod lupom” welcomes solutions through amendments to the BiH Electoral Law with the goal to improve the electoral process and protect citizens’ electoral will
Through the aforementioned amendments to the BiH Election Law, the assumptions were finally created so to introduce new technologies into the electoral process, which the Coalition “Pod lupom” has been advocating for many years. The changes include legal assumptions to introduce electronic voter identification, ballot scanners and electronic processing and transmission of voting results from the polling station level. Also, the changes include the reform of Polling Station Committees in the form to introduce non-party presidents and deputy presidents of Polling Station Committees and to limit membership in Polling Station Committees only to parliamentary political subjects.
„In this way, four out of five Coalition’s priority recommendations for better elections in BiH are directly implemented,” they stated in the Coalition „Pod lupom“.
In addition to the above-mentioned, the amendments introduce a numerous other improvements in accordance with the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR, the Venice Commission, GRECO and non-partisan election observers, such as: public announcement of the names of Polling Station Committees members as well as their political entity affiliation; prohibition to run a premature campaign; extending the ban on misuse of public resources; public disclosure of voter list and the right to inspect the voter list for all citizens-voters; enabling to file complains on election process for all citizens-voters; additional security mechanisms for postal voting; automatic recount of votes in case of significant deviations at the polling station; incompatibility of functions through the mandate in inactivity; better education of election administration; equal gender representation in the CEC BiH composition; additional insurance of election material; better accessibility to polling stations for persons with disabilities; public disclosure of the register of complains and appeals to the electoral process; obligation to open a separate bank account for financing the campaign; expanding the definition of hate speech and media regulations; as well as increasing sanctions for political subjects and individuals who were found to have violated election rules or procedures.
“Certainly, it would be best solution if in a democratic society the representatives, who are elected and paid by the citizens, make decisions in the best interests of the citizens, but unfortunately this is not the case when it comes to the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore, this decision is primarily the result of politicians’ inactivity over the course of the previous years,” they stated in the Coalition.
The aforementioned amendments to the BiH Electoral Law prevent proven electoral theft and fraud, ensure that every vote is counted, make it impossible to add or annul votes, and contribute to the overall integrity of the electoral process in BiH in order to protect the real electoral will of citizens.
“We would like to express our gratitude to each of the 150,000 citizens of BiH who signed the petition for the introduction of new technologies in the elections or were directly involved in other activities of the Coalition “Pod lupom” over the past 10 years of our work. And now – everyone get out and vote!”, they invited from the Coalition “Pod lupom”.
