Can election fraud be prevented and are parties ready for stricter controls

The issue of electoral manipulation and vote theft is always raised a month or two before elections, which are held every two years in BiH. OSCE observers always state, after everything is over, that the elections were held in accordance with international standards, but that certain irregularities were recorded. And that's where it all ends, until the next elections and the next thefts, writes the Patria news agency.

Already, from Stolac, Srebrenica, and Banovići, there are warnings about dead voters, fictitiously registered individuals, those who deregister their place of residence from one municipality to another for the purpose of voting...

Can elections be held in a fair and correct atmosphere and can an environment be created in which there will be no electoral manipulation and theft, and how can citizens trust that their vote went to the candidate they marked, or that their ballot will not be declared invalid, and they will be classified as "illiterate" voters?  

In the 2010 General Elections, candidates for the Presidency of BiH, Fahrudin Radončić (SBB) and Mladen Ivanić (PDP), were robbed of 150,000 votes. As many as 75,000 votes were invalidated for Radončić, while 74,000 out of 290,000 votes won by Ivanić were invalidated.

The criminal complaint filed by PDP in 2010 due to election theft remained somewhere in court drawers, and no investigation was ever conducted.

That year, according to PDP data, 7,000 residents of Banja Luka were "illiterate," and as many as 60,000 citizens at the RS level. No one knew how to fill out a ballot that had only three candidate names for the BiH Presidency member!?   

Thefts also occur within the candidate lists of a single party. The total number of votes won by the party does not change, but through members of polling station committees, votes are stolen from individuals who are undesirable and transferred to a chosen candidate who did not win the required quota, in order for them to cross the electoral threshold to obtain a mandate.

A large number of people are involved in the organization of vote theft. It is an entire machinery and a well-established system.

One of the methods is that a voter receives an already filled-out ballot upon entering the voting room, takes a new one, goes behind the curtain, inserts the filled-out one, and takes the blank one with them, handing it over to the "organizer."

The same principle is applied in a circle until the end of the election day. Usually, these voters receive 20 to 50 KM for the "done" job.

Voters who take a picture of the ballot with their mobile phone and show it to the theft organizer at the exit that they have marked the requested candidate also receive money.

Furthermore, "illiterate" voters are also used, who state that they need an escort because they are illiterate, which is their legal right, and the escort, behind the curtain, confirms that the job has been done, after which payment is made.

There are, of course, also false minutes from polling stations. They do not correspond to the actual situation of counted ballots, but also the subsequent entry of incorrect data into the central server from municipal and city election commissions.

Traditionally, thefts are also organized by adding crosses to ballots, crossing with special pens in the circles, and inserting ballots after the election process has ended.

The purchase of polling station committee members has also been a well-rehearsed election business since 1996 to the present day.    

Political analyst and expert on electoral issues, Almir Terzić, tells NAP that the Central Counting Center of the BiH Central Election Commission records hundreds of attempts to add, alter, and falsify election results every time during checks, which is why a recount is ordered.

- This clearly shows that the system of attempting to falsify election results is widespread in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and numerous attempts are likely not even discovered. The problem is multifaceted.

It is necessary, first and foremost, to depoliticize the polling station committees, which are considered the weakest link in the electoral system, i.e., the places where manipulations are most often carried out.

Evidence of this is the punishment of several hundred members of polling station committees in previous election cycles, but unfortunately, the BiH Prosecutor's Office has failed to react, having not initiated a single proceeding against such acts to date, warns Terzić.  

At the same time, he says, it is an open secret that membership in polling station committees is traded, which is why we often have not only single-nationality but also polling station committees whose members are composed of representatives of the same political party.

In such circumstances, manipulations are more than possible. In fact, there is a tacit agreement among political parties regarding the division of zones of interest, areas. Certainly, the insufficient number of observers, not only from international organizations but also from domestic non-governmental organizations, but generally from civil society, enables manipulations at polling stations.

Therefore, a change in the structure of elections, as well as the membership of polling station committees, is the number 1 condition for a more transparent electoral system.

However, political parties in BiH are ready to talk about everything, but they have never been ready to do anything to introduce more order into the polling station committees themselves. They also know why. These are places where manipulations are often carried out against the will of the voters, especially those related to adding the number of votes to certain candidates on the lists.

For a more transparent electoral system, transparent ballot boxes are certainly necessary, as well as electronic vote counting, based on which numerous manipulations could be identified and prevented, believes Terzić.