From the CEC to the Prosecutor's Office: How Citizens' Identities Are Stolen

Written by Sead Omeragić

The Central Election Commission confirmed to Patria that identity theft was detected in more than 340 cases. The CEC submitted these identity theft reports to the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina. So far, there has been no reaction from the Prosecutor's Office, although only 11 days remain until the elections. They are not issuing statements, even though the public is alarmed by the discovery of numerous frauds.

"We can say that there is indeed a significant number of voters who are contacting us to report that their will has been abused," confirmed Maksida Pirić from the CEC.

The coalition "Under the Lens" appealed to the Central Election Commission to publicly release the list of voters by mail, of course with the protection of citizens' personal data, but including names and surnames, as well as the municipality and country for which they are registered to vote. One portal published the lists, and there have already been reactions to numerous unknown names in certain cities. The purpose of that publication was for the injured parties to come forward and for all citizens to be able to report false voters.

The deadline for receiving applications for voting from abroad was July 24 this year. There was enough time to prevent fraud. The CEC notes that they received nearly 87,000 applications for voting from abroad. Upon review, about 9,500 suspicious applications were found and immediately rejected. This left 77,000 voter applications, but these are also being investigated. Applications were rejected on various grounds, ranging from obvious identical personal data to numerous votes from a single address.

Only about ten days ago, the first case of identity theft was reported. A citizen was checking their polling place and saw that someone had stolen their data and registered them to vote in Vienna. So far, 340 such identity thefts have been discovered.

Why is this happening? Identity theft is possible in dozens of ways, and it will be abused, not only with votes from abroad. If a person checks into a hotel, they must provide their personal data. Even with prize games, identity theft occurs. By signing petitions, people surrender their identity for potential abuse. Just before the elections, various signatures and petitions are being collected. For example, Bosniaks in several cities of the Republika Srpska were offered a campaign to demand the restoration of old names of cities or streets where they were born. Many, with the best intentions, signed all sorts of things, for instance, in one case, it was a request for the return of removed partisan monuments. After the discovery of mass identity theft for the elections, fear has crept in among people that their names will be misused.

For the second consecutive election, there is talk of nearly nine thousand centenarians going to vote. What has the Prosecutor's Office done in this case? It should have acted ex officio, without anyone's report, based on ordinary newspaper articles. Ahead of these elections, the numbers of centenarians are again being repeated in the media, but nothing is being done about it.

No one is talking about the consequences of this primitive and brutal assault on the electoral process in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Will we witness unrest after the elections? Dragan Čović is already openly threatening some undesirable events if he does not win the elections. Namely, with all these frauds planted before the elections, losers are given the opportunity to say they were robbed. This opens up space for all possible doubts about the regularity of the electoral process.

The fact is that numerous manipulations of election applications will be uncovered and some people will be punished. But what did these primitive attempts at fraud mean and who were they intended for? Is this a strategy already seen, continuously implemented by the enemies of this state? After all this, will the most important thing be precisely the doubt in the electoral process? Should this once again disgrace this state and open new spaces for its enemies to act?