Allegations of irregularities in the Bosnia’s election process are becoming more frequent as the October election is approaching. The most recent ones point out there is a huge imbalance between the number of valid ID cards and the number of registered voters.
Chief of Bosnia’s Agency for identification documents, registers and data exchange (IDDEEA), Arif Nanic, told N1 that the number of valid ID cards issued in Bosnia and Herzegovina for citizens aged 18 and above does not match the number of voters who have registered for the upcoming general elections in the country by August 23.
“We’ve communicated with the Central Election Commission (CEC) and established a huge difference between the valid, issued documents and the list of voters. We’ll probably try to figure out together with the CEC in the following days how did that happen”, said Nanic.
According to the official data, 3,352,993 citizens registered to vote in the 2018 general election, while the number of citizens owning an ID card is 3,101,473. If the citizens under the age of 18 – who are not entitled to the right to vote – and those with a place of residence out of Bosnia are omitted, the list of voters counts over 250,000 voters without an ID card.
A vote is also valid if voters own a passport or a driver’s license, explained Nanic. However, the gap in the figures is too huge and, according to him, this requires the involvement of investigative bodies.
The data provided by the IDDEEA are accurate, according to Nanic, they are public and are available in the monthly paper the agency issues every month.
CEC member Suad Arnautovic claims it is exactly the IDDEEA that should explain the imbalance in these figures. According to him, the list of voters was concluded based on the data provided by this agency.
“They provided the data on August 23 on the number of registered voters and we published it,” Arnautovic said for N1 pointing out that the number of issued ID cards may be misleading as these documents are often reissued due to various reasons.
“Central list of voters is formed based on the official data since 2006. You know very well it is the police bodies who issue the ID cards, passports and driver’s licences, they should explain it if there’s a difference. Even the registry offices that keep the record on the citizenships and the death index,” he added.
The first problems with the election process emerged after a few voters discovered they were registered in the polling stations nowhere close to their real place of residence.
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