Ballots for electing parliamentary bodies at the 2026 General Elections won’t include the first and last name of the candidate; rather, after marking a political subject, the voters will elect desired candidates according to their ordinal number, said the representatives of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections “Under Magnifying Glass” today.
Project manager of the Coalition, Dario Jovanović, said that the final design of the ballot has not yet been officially presented, but that the Coalition has been informed by the Central Electoral Committee of Bosnia and Herzegovina about the removal of candidates’ names from the ballot.
Voters should receive separate printed material with candidates’ names and their ordinal numbers alongside the ballot. After marking a political subject, they will mark up to three ordinal numbers for the candidates they want to vote for.
“The biggest change for the voters is the redesign of the ballot and removal of candidates’ first and last names. For 26 years, the voters were used to one way of voting, and now it is important to educate them on time,” Jovanović said.
He explained that open lists and preferential voting are not being abolished, but that it will no longer be possible to vote only for candidates without marking the political subject.
According to data from the Coalition ‘Under Magnifying Glass,’ approximately two-thirds of voters use preferential voting, allowing them to influence which candidates are elected to parliaments and assemblies.
Redesign of the ballots is linked to the introduction of ballot scanners. The ballots are planned to be single-sided printed in A4 format, which should make their scanning faster and more reliable, while reducing the risk of compromising the secrecy of the vote.
During the previous pilot project, some ballots were nearly 72 centimeters long and printed on both sides, making them more difficult to scan and potentially jeopardizing ballot secrecy.
Jovanović said that the electronic voter identification and scanners represent a historic step forward in protecting the integrity of the electoral process, but that new technologies cannot prevent all forms of electoral abuse.
“New technologies resolve proven electoral frauds on election day, during the voting, counting, and result entry processes. However, they do not solve the corruption issue and pressure on voters ahead of election day,” he emphasized.
According to research conducted by the Coalition, 40 percent of interviewed voters said that they were exposed to some form of illegal pressure in connection with voting.
