Every election brings the same stories: alleged voting notices sent to deceased people, duplicate entries, addresses with dozens of registered voters, neighbors nobody has ever seen, and postal workers delivering voting slips.
This October, new questions have emerged following reports of a sharp increase in the number of valid national ID cards, a document required to vote.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs has since responded that what initially appeared to be an increase was actually an error.
Although some of these situations raise suspicions, lawyer Ognjen Rašuo, a member of the Voter Register Audit Commission, says the key role is played by those who conduct elections.
“You can have the worst voter register in the world and still have democratic elections if you can trust the people conducting them.
“You can also have the best voter register in the world, but if someone wants to steal the election, they will steal it,” Rašuo, a representative of the opposition Green-Left Front on the Commission, told BBC Serbian.
A surge in the number of ID cards
The number of valid ID cards held by adults increased by more than 236,000 between May 18 and September 28, according to figures Rašuo published on social media on October 13.
In May, there were approximately 5,990,000 valid ID cards, while by the end of September the number had reached around 6,225,000, according to data the lawyer obtained from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
“I asked them at a meeting of the Voter Register Audit Commission whether that figure was accurate.
“I even urged them to check again in case it was a mistake or a typo. Perhaps someone in the police had accidentally entered 6,225,000 instead of 6,025,000. Not only did they fail to correct it, but they did not see anything suspicious about it either,” he wrote on X.
Rašuo says he became suspicious because, during the same period from May to September, there was no corresponding increase in applications for new ID cards that could explain such a jump in the number of valid identity documents.
In addition, there was no significant increase in the number of people on the voter register, which would be expected in such circumstances, he added.
The issue was discussed at the latest meeting of the Voter Register Audit Commission.
Representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said at the meeting that the increase did not appear “unusual” to them.
“I am almost certain that there is nothing suspicious as far as we are concerned,” a ministry representative said at the meeting.
Three days later, there was a turnaround.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs told us that an error had been made in the May figure for valid ID cards and that the number had actually been close to the September figure even then, Rašuo said in a subsequent conversation with BBC Serbian.
“We requested additional data, and until we receive it, we cannot draw any conclusions,” he added.
The census and the voter register
According to the 2022 census, Serbia has a population of 6,647,003.
According to the voter register, 6,450,523 citizens are eligible to vote.
That may sound illogical, but there is an explanation.
While the census records people living in the country, the voter register includes Serbian citizens, including those who moved abroad decades ago, Rašuo explained.
To remain on the voter register, all they need to do is keep their registered residence in Serbia, meaning they must not have officially deregistered it.
“This is also legally problematic because, when someone registers a place of residence, the police officer is required to establish that the person genuinely intends to live there.
“Their registered residence is fictitious. They do not actually live at those addresses and, in my opinion, they have been unlawfully entered in the voter register,” he said.
Dozens of people registered at the same apartment
Although there is an explanation for the roughly similar numbers of people on the census and the voter register, the situation may also point to abuse, the lawyer said.
“During local elections, people were brought in from the former Yugoslav republics to vote in Belgrade.
“We find addresses in exclusive parts of the capital where people from Bosnian villages are registered,” he said.
“We have an example of a 24-square-meter apartment where 25 people are registered,” he added.
Nevertheless, if those people have the corresponding address listed on their identity documents and are registered to vote, they are entitled to cast a ballot.
The CRTA election observation mission previously documented organized voter migration during the 2023 elections, saying it was intended to influence the outcomes of local elections.
“Organized voter migration is neither legal nor legitimate,” the organization added.
Registering fictitious places of residence violates the law governing residence registration, while undermining electoral equality and significantly infringing on people’s guaranteed right to choose their local government, it added.
Half a million people without a full address
According to Radio Free Europe, approximately half a million people on the voter register do not have a complete address recorded, meaning their entries lack a street name and house number.
Rašuo explained that there are several reasons for this, one of which is that some villages have no named streets.
Another reason is that police officers sometimes make mistakes when providing information to the officials responsible for entering voters in the register, he added.
“Police officers do not always enter the full address. For example, they may leave out the apartment number and then submit the incomplete information for inclusion in the voter register.
“As a result, you can have a building in New Belgrade where 20 or 30 residents are listed as living at number zero, meaning in the basement, which is impossible.
“The problem is that such situations make abuse easier, because another ten people can be added to that address,” he said.
The mystery of a foreign woman
In recent days, two voting notices issued in the name of the same foreign woman have been circulating on social media.
On one notice, her name is written in Cyrillic; on the other, in Latin script. The address is the same, but the registration numbers in the voter register are different.
“That woman obtained Serbian citizenship and was entered in the voter register on the basis of her citizenship, with her name written in Latin script.
“She then obtained an ID card with her name in Cyrillic and was entered in the voter register again, this time with her name in Cyrillic,” the lawyer explained.
“She is not the only one; there are other similar cases,” he added.
Cleaning up the voter register, a problem that has been highlighted for decades, was one of the recommendations made by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).
However, the work has not been completed even ahead of these elections, and members of the Commission have faced numerous obstacles, Rašuo said.
Among other things, they have not been granted access to all the databases needed to verify registered voters.
“Numerous participants in the electoral process have expressed concern about the accuracy of the voter register, including the unusually high number of voters registered in certain municipalities and at particular addresses.
“The authorities have not publicly explained these discrepancies or indicated whether they are being investigated,” ODIHR stated in its latest report, dated October 9.
The government’s Office for Information Technologies takes a different view, arguing, with reference to its digital platform, that the data in the Unified Voter Register are largely accurate.
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