The Central Election Commission (CEC) of Bosnia and Herzegovina officially received RFID readers and related IT applications for the warehouse of the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Irena Hadžiabdić, president of the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina, spoke about the significance of this donation at the handover ceremony.
“As of today, the Central Election Commission has modernized its warehouse. We have a large amount of election materials, from ballot papers to various types of equipment. An efficient system for managing these materials can improve the organization of work, reduce errors and ensure the quick availability of key resources. Everything we need in crisis situations,” explained Hadžiabdić.
She pointed out that the introduction of two new applications and equipment of 15 barcode readers makes it possible to operate more easily and precisely in the CEC warehouse.
“We are talking about the use of barcodes on our electoral material for easier verification of electoral material. For local elections, we are talking about the use of 35,000 different barcodes, and for general elections it is twice as much – almost 70,000 barcodes. New software solutions and equipment provide numerous advantages in comparison to the manual method of warehouse management, namely efficiency, time saving, precision, reduction of errors, improvement of security, better organization and visibility, less costs, better analysis and reporting,” said Hadžiabdić.
She said that in this way, the basis for very reliable operation of the CEC warehouse is being created.
“For the Central Election Commission, and especially in the context of local elections, the applications will ensure that all materials are available, properly recorded and distributed on time,” Hadžiabdić added.
Brian Aggeler, the head of the OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that fair and transparent elections are the cornerstone of advanced democracy because they foster general trust, legitimacy and public confidence in the political system.
“It is crucial that the electoral process in Bosnia and Herzegovina respects the highest standards of transparency, ensuring the basic rights of its citizens. Conducting elections is a truly complex and sensitive process that requires not only the full efforts and activities of the CEC, but also political parties, civil society, the judiciary, law enforcement authorities and the media, that they all act professionally and with integrity,” explained Aggeler.
As he said, by monitoring the CEC’s activities, they noticed an increase in the volume of work related to the reception and processing of election materials.
“This challenge can be solved by applying RFID technology, which would enable a system solution for, above all, the storage of optional material, facilitate its handling and significantly reduce the time required for this,” he stated.
In this regard, they acquired 15 RFID readers and developed accompanying applications.
“By introducing RFID, CEC will be able to identify the flow of equipment and materials in the warehouse, and will always have real-time information on how assets, including optional materials, are used and where they are physically located,” explained Ageler.
Julian Riley, ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, said that they are here today because they believe in democracy and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“Functional democracies that represent citizens can only exist with free and fair elections. The institutions responsible for conducting elections must have the appropriate tools and resources. The readers we donated today will help the CEC to identify the movement of equipment and, in reality, receives information on how the election equipment is used and where it is physically located. This will help to make the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina more efficient and difficult to manipulate,” added Riley.
