The Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina has asked the BiH Complaints Review Office to continue with the tender for the procurement of new technologies despite the complaint that was received regarding the same tender, and it can already be concluded that it will be difficult for the CEC to complete the tender, which numerous officials have warned about before.
“It is almost impossible to produce and deliver such a large number of scanners in a short period of time and implement them at all polling stations, unless the equipment is already prepared in advance. I doubt that any public institution could conduct a public procurement procedure in such a short time,” said Srđan Amidžić, Minister of Finance and Treasury of BiH, back in July.
Incidentally, the story of the procurement of new technologies that would be used in the elections has been going on for several years. With the intervention of Christian Schmidt, the CEC was allocated 112 million BAM for the procurement of these technologies, primarily devices for biometric voter identification and ballot scanners.
After that, on November 14, the CEC announced a tender for the procurement of these devices worth 88 million BAM, but only ten days later, three complaints were received for the tender, some of which the CEC partially accepted.
“The complaints of two companies were accepted. The CEC issued its decision on these complaints and one of the companies appealed to the Office for Review of Complaints against that CEC decision and all of this was forwarded to the Office for action,” a source close to the CEC told “Nezavisne”.
The CEC itself said that in accordance with the Law on Public Procurement, they submitted a request to continue the public procurement procedure until the appeal procedure is completed.
“Failure to adopt the above request to continue the procedure, while fulfilling all legal requirements, may cause damage to the public interest, because unfounded extension of deadlines also makes the process of introducing electoral technologies in BiH more difficult for the 2026 general elections,” they said in the CEC.
Those well-informed about the entire procedure say that it is almost certain that the deadlines defined by the tender will be missed and that it is difficult to expect that we will have new technologies for the 2026 elections. First, and considering that numerous companies have taken over the tender documentation, more complaints can be expected only after the possible selection of suppliers. The second question is whether any company can meet the deadline and implement new technologies by next year’s elections.
When it comes to tender deadlines, the documentation was available until December 9, and the deadline for receiving bids is December 30 by 2 p.m., and the opening of bids is planned for the same day at 2:15 p.m. After the bids are opened, the most favorable one that meets the conditions will be selected, and only after that can complaints be expected.
The procurement includes the delivery of equipment, its installation and configuration, as well as training for the entire system intended for biometric voter identification and ballot scanning.
“The project envisages the procurement of identification and scanning devices, software licenses, consumables, technical support, production and printing of ballots adapted to the devices, ballot boxes with integrated scanners, and an external battery. The procurement services will also include the transport of equipment to polling stations and return to the warehouse, as well as training of trainers and election administration for the efficient use and management of the devices,” the CEC announced.
It is interesting that just a few days before the tender announcement, the CEC itself said that the condition for its announcement was the amendments to the Election Law, especially in the part of ballots, given that at the moment there is hardly a scanner that can scan a ballot with hundreds of names on it. However, the CEC announced the tender without amendments to the Election Law of BiH.
