– Elections in the Republic of Serbia in 2022 –
Belgrade, April 4, 2022
The Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights YUCOM organized an expert mobile team for short-term observation of elections and assessment of the quality of the voting process of citizens of the Republic of Serbia in the presidential, parliamentary and Belgrade elections held on April 3, 2022.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights is a non-governmental organization that has been dealing with the protection of human rights for 25 years and building and preserving the rule of law and democracy in Serbia. Since gaining the status of a candidate for Serbia’s membership in the European Union, we have been monitoring the implementation of Serbia’s obligations within the political criteria and negotiating Chapter 23.
The mobile team of YUCOM visited a total of 15 polling stations on the territory of the City of Belgrade, and the work of one of the local election commissions was observed.[1] No serious violations of the election procedure were recorded at the observed polling stations. Nevertheless, the mobile team noted the following irregularities:
- At least 6 polling stations were not accessible for people with disabilities;[2]
- Cases of family voting were registered at 5 polling stations;
- At 5 polling stations voters complained that they had received invitations to vote for deceased relatives and persons unknown to them;
- In at least half of the monitored polling stations, the members of the polling stations did inspect the ID cards of the voters, but they did not check the voter list according to the unique identification number, but according to the name and surname of the voter. Due to this practice, one voter signed the wrong number in the voters list at PS 14 CM Stari grad, because the name and surname matched, but not the ID number, which the polling board determined when another person came to vote with the same name and surname;
- At PS 82 CM Voždovac, there was a short obstruction of the work of the polling board by three young people who, in addition to insulting the members of the polling station committee, violated the secrecy of voting by entering together behind one screen, interfering with voters behind other screens;
- At PS 39 CM Stari grad, during the counting of votes at the local level, a higher number of voters was determined in relation to the number of voters who turned out;
- Insufficient training of members, especially polling board chairpersons, was observed in some polling stations, which slowed down the conduct of the election process during election day, especially in the context of ignorance of the order of procedures after polling stations closed;
- At PS 39 CM Stari grad, a member of the permanent composition of the polling board inappropriately, disrespectfully treated a foreign observer’s interpreter, obstructing their observation of the vote-counting phase, with various inappropriate heckling;
- At 5 polling stations, observers were not offered to complete/sign the Record on Observers of the Work of the Polling Boards;
- During the observation of the work of the local election commission, there was an unnecessary delay at the beginning of the processing of the received data from the poling boards, which brought the material after the end of the voting.
Observers of the CRTA observation mission were present at 10 polling stations, observers of the CESID observation mission were present at 3 polling stations, observers of the Local Front observation mission were present at 1 polling station, while observers from the OSCE / ODIHR, IFES, SEC Macedonia, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Civil Chamber of the Russian Federation.
Since the respect for the rule of law and the level of democracy in Serbia has been deteriorating in the last few years, we have organized an expert mobile team in order to contribute to the findings of the present domestic and foreign observers. Accordingly, the findings of the expert mobile team will be used exclusively to supplement the findings and reporting within the mentioned areas.
Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights YUCOM team
[1] The mobile team visited polling stations no. 52, 82, 55 and 54 on the territory of the city municipality of Voždovac, polling stations no. 6, 7, 17 and 35 on the territory of the city municipality of Vračar and polling stations no. 17, 22, 14, 15, 28, 29 and 39, as well as the Local Election Commission Vračar.
[2] At 2 polling stations (PS 35 MC Vračar and PS 15 MC Stari grad), voting with a helper was recorded, which was conducted in accordance with the legal framework.
