#16 FACILITATE THE ELECTORAL RIGHTS PROTECTION PROCESS TO VOTERS AND PARTICIPANTS TO THE ELECTIONS

The process of protection of the right to vote should not only be efficient, but must be simple, and without too much formality, especially with regard to the merits of appeals (VC I.3.3.b). All candidates and all voters registered in the constituency must have the right to appeal (I.3.3.f.), and the right of the appellant to be heard must be protected. (I.3.3.h). In order for these standards to be met, it is necessary to undertake the following:

1. Enable voters to electronically submit requests to check whether they have voted in the election

   After the change of the election laws from 2022, the practical storage of election material after the Election Day was entrusted to the local self-government units (municipal and city electoral commissions). In such circumstances, the application developed and used by the REC during the 2020 elections to collect requests from voters wishing to obtain information on whether they had voted and / or to inspect the excerpt from the Electoral Roll (and see whether their signature exists) could not be used. Having in mind the described new circumstances, it is necessary to adapt the application developed by the REC in such a way that local self-government units can receive electronic requests from voters.

2. Extend the right of voters to submit a request for annulment of elections at the polling station where they are registered in the excerpt from the Voters’ Register

   Amendments to the Law on the Election of Members of Parliament and the Law on Local Elections from 2022 narrowed the possibility for voters to protect their voting right by restricting the right of voters to submit a request or complaint to the electoral commission only when the polling committee unreasonably prevented them from voting or if their right to free and secret ballot has been violated at the polling station, and not in cases when they have knowledge that their voting right has been violated by another act or act of the polling committee or electoral commission. It is necessary to amend the aforementioned laws (Article 148, paragraph 2 of the Law on Elections of Members of Parliament and Article 57, paragraph 2 of the Law on Local Elections) so as to enable the voter to submit a request for annulment of elections, i.e. objection to voting, and in other cases where there were irregularities in the procedure of conducting voting at the polling station where they are registered in the excerpt from the Voters’ Register.

3. Enable sending requests for the annulment of elections, i.e. objections electronically

   In the previous period, thanks to the application of the provisions of the new Law on General Administrative Procedure, it was allowed to send complaints electronically, and therefore the CRTA, after the election for councillors of the Belgrade City Assembly, marked this recommendation as fulfilled. The CRTA has no information on whether in 2020 the REC acted on electronically signed submissions, nor whether such submissions were sent to the REC during the election process. The status of the recommendation will be changed if new findings become available. According to the information from the 2022 election process, the REC did not accept submitted objections signed with an electronic signature, but asked the applicant to send the objection by mail with a handwritten signature or hand it in at the clerk’s office. The status of the recommendation will be changed if the CRTA acquires new information.

4. Stipulate by the Law the measure of repeating the election at the polling station only in cases of irregularities that affect the election results, with the determination of which irregularities are those and in cases where the election results cannot be determined.

   The existing solutions from the Law on the Election of Members of Parliament specify particular cases in which the local electoral commission cannot determine the results of the election (consequence – repeating the election at that polling station), i.e. specific cases due to which the local electoral commission ex officio repeats the election at the polling station. These solutions should be changed in the direction of defining the circumstances that lead to irregularities that, if they occur, directly affect the voting results at the polling station, and because of them, the voting must be repeated.

   For other types of irregularities, it is necessary to foresee another type of procedure that does not result in repeating the election at the polling station. This right should also be given to the voters, in addition to the possibility to submit a request for the annulment of the election.