CRTA Observation Mission: Voter Import Critically Influenced Belgrade Election Outcome

(Patria) - Based on the facts collected and analyses conducted so far, the CRTA Observation Mission raises a well-founded suspicion that organized voter migrations occurred in the elections on December 17 to an extent that critically influenced the outcome of the very close elections for the Belgrade Assembly.

This is the main conclusion of the report that CRTA presented today at a press conference, compiled based on material collected before, during, and after election day.

Organized voter migrations are a form of electoral engineering that is neither legal nor legitimate.

By registering fictitious residences for the purpose of voting in local elections outside one's own city or municipality, laws regulating citizens' residency are violated, and the principles of electoral equality and the guaranteed right of citizens to elect their local self-government are jeopardized.

Regarding the scope and prevalence of voter list manipulation, CRTA received information from various sources even before the elections, pointing to illegal actions by local self-government bodies and the highest republican executive authorities aimed at shaping the election results in Belgrade in favor of the ruling party.

Crucial evidence was collected by CRTA observers on election day, who also took a large number of photos and videos of organized transportation of voters from other cities in Serbia and abroad to Belgrade.

Several points were recorded that served as logistical centers for the operation, from where voters were directed and escorted to polling stations in various parts of the Serbian capital.

CRTA observers noticed instances of organized voter transportation, supervised voting, and possible voter identity manipulation at 71 polling stations, or 14 percent of polling stations in Belgrade – in Čukarica (10), New Belgrade (9), Vračar (7), Voždovac (7), and Zemun (7).

It was recorded that voters arrived in an organized manner from various parts of Serbia – e.g., from Pančevo, Valjevo, Čačak, Aranđelovac, Smederevo, Vršac, Novi Sad, etc., as well as from Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia, which strengthens the suspicion that local elections were strategically called only in a third of local self-government units to enable temporary voter relocations.

Additional analyses were conducted after election day using and cross-referencing quantitative data from publicly available data from the electronic version of the voter list on the website of the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government (voters' names and surnames by polling station) and the voting results.

Significant changes in the voter list that occurred over a one-year period were established.

Polling stations in Belgrade were identified for which it can be concluded with high probability that they were destinations for organized voter migration, and where the ruling party achieved a significant increase in votes compared to previous elections.

Some political actors indirectly confirmed the findings of this analysis – several politicians and high-ranking officials from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina explicitly confirmed the implementation of the mentioned practices, attempting to justify them and present them as legal and legitimate.

CRTA has made a series of recommendations to prevent the unacceptable phenomena that marked these elections in Belgrade.

In the short term, it is necessary for the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government to make the voter list fully public, with reasonable and feasible measures to protect voters' personal data.

Furthermore, prosecutors must investigate all well-founded suspicions of criminal offenses committed in connection with the elections.

In the medium term, the Ministry should conduct an independent audit of the Unified Voter List of Citizens in accordance with the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR Mission.

The National Assembly should adopt amendments to the Election Law that would prevent organized voter migrations.