General elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina will be held on October 4. For the first time, it will be carried out with biometric identification and scanning of ballots. The Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CEC BiH) is looking for a company that will perform an independent control of the technologies, the procurement of which they have entrusted to “Smartmatica”. The training of the election administration is ongoing, but it only applies to by-laws. Will everything be ready by the election and will the training of voters and the election administration be done on time?
General elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina are scheduled for October 4. Scanner application is expected. We are still waiting for the equipment to be procured. The training of the election administration for new technologies has not yet started. This is confirmed by the conducted training, but for the application of by-laws, they explain to us in the City Election Commission of Banjaluka.
“As far as new technologies are concerned, the supplier has the obligation to prepare a manual for the use of new election technologies and to train the election administration, commission members and all structures to conduct training,” says the president of the Banja Luka City Election Commission Dubravko Malinić.
The Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina encourages that everything will be ready. The training of the election administration has begun, they say.
“In order to ensure that the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina are conducted professionally, transparently and in accordance with international standards, the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina have jointly implemented an extensive program of building the capacity of municipal/city election commissions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including education,” stated the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
How everything will look like will be clear on election day, our interlocutor tells us. He believes that everything will be ready, the acquisition of equipment, but also adequate training. A more transparent election process is expected.
“What is certain is that we will have double control. The machines themselves will enter data on the number of ballots, even the results, and then after that, after the closing of the polling stations, when that machine is taken down, there will be a traditional counting of ballots again, which will be done by the polling committees”, explains Srđan Ostojić from the “Under Scrutiny” Coalition.
Voter education is also important. In this way, the scope for abuses, which, says Ivana Korajlić from Transparency International BiH, are skillfully found by representatives of political parties. However, the application of new technologies cannot prevent everything.
“Of course, the part before the election, new technologies cannot prevent that. We will certainly have vote buying. We are already seeing increases in certain items in the budget, planning of discretionary benefits for different categories of the population, which will go for the purpose of buying support,” Korajlić believes.
Let us remind you that the CEC chose the American company “Smartmatic” for the procurement of election technologies. The price is about 74.5 million BAM. The offer, among other things, refers to the procurement of 6,000 devices for biometric identification, software, technical support for hardware and software, 6,000 scanners for ballots integrated into ballot boxes, software licenses, but also the training of trainers and election administration.
