The Coalition’s legal team has registered 65 serious violations of the BiH Election Law. By 2:30 p.m, Pod Lupom’s observers filed 14 objections concerning observed irregularities in the voting process. At one polling station in Čelinac (035B020), the voting process was briefly interrupted (between 12:00 and 12:30 pm) due to disturbing public peace and order. Following citizens’ reports, the police departments in Vlasenica, Vitez, and Živnice were notified because of pressure on voters. Citizens also report that stamps and signatures have been pre-imprinted on ballots, and not upon handing over the ballot papers, as prescribed.
Due to the major violation of BiH Election Law in Novi Grad in Republika Srpska, at the polling station in Hozići (007B051), where marked ballot papers were found, CEC BiH informed the public that the voting at this polling station would be postponed and conducted subsequently.
All Coalition’s observers have accessed their assigned polling stations and are monitoring the voting process. Unfortunately, the Coalition faced a situation where a certain number of observers withdrew, which was especially prominent in Banja Luka and Bijeljina. Despite this problem, the Coalition covers the polling stations in these cities, and observers are reporting, so the Coalition continues informing the public about the election process.
At a polling station in Zvornik, the Coalition filed an objection with the Local Election Commission Zvornik because the polling station committee refused to enter into the Minutes on operations of the polling station committee an objection concerning several types of irregularities in the voting process at the polling station in Kozluk (083B029A).
There were no registered cases of one person being issued multiple ballot papers, one person voting multiple times, or one person voting on behalf of another person not present at the polling station.
At two polling stations (136A018 Centar Sarajevo and 026B003 Pelagićevo), a member of the polling station committee in charge of handing over ballots does not leave an imprint of the stamp and sign front
sides of each ballot below the text reading “Voting Instruction” in the lower left corner. According to the regulation, such ballot papers shall not be taken into consideration during the vote count, which can take away suffrage from voters who voted on those ballot papers.
Open attempts to persuade voters to vote for a certain political subject were registered at 14 polling stations, while intimidations and pressure were registered at five polling stations.
Up to ten cases of not reading aloud the name and surname of a voter during their identification were registered at almost 13% of the polling stations. This procedure was altered since the previous elections in BiH, and now the name and surname of a voter should not be read aloud.
At four polling stations, (124A024 Tomislavgrad, 127A019 Konjic, 007B014 Novi Grad, and 107A005 Kupres FBiH), voting was allowed without prior checking identification documents.
Up to ten cases of sending voters away from polling stations because they were not on the excerpt from the Central Voter Register were recorded at 31% of the polling stations, while more than ten such cases were registered at eight polling stations.
The Coalition’s observers registered up to ten cases of family voting at 36% of the polling stations. Thus far, this is half the number of cases in the local elections in 2020, which indicates that the change in the regulation to set up a voting booth to face observers yielded positive results. More than ten cases of family voting were registered at seven polling stations.
The new procedure for third-person assistance was not complied with at 12% of the polling stations (up to ten cases). More than ten cases of this type of irregularity were registered at three polling stations (034B245 Banja Luka, 083B029A Zvornik, and 083B026A Zvornik).
Up to ten cases of one person assisting two or several times physically disabled, blind, or illiterate voters were recorded at 10% of the polling stations, and more than ten cases of this irregularity were recorded at one polling station in Zvornik (083B026A Zvornik).
A longer presence of unauthorized persons was registered at seven polling stations.
The Pod Lupom Coalition calls on all citizens to contact the Coalition and report all observed irregularities either via the toll-free number 080 05 05 05, using the form ‘Prijavi izbornu nepravilnost’ (Report election irregularity) on the webpage www.podlupom.org or via social media networks.
The Coalition’s first press conference will take place at 5:30 pm, at Hotel Hills in Sarajevo.
