The Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CEC BiH) has not been able to establish a unified election information system for five years because the Republika Srpska (RS) refuses to hand over geodetic data to this state institution free of charge.
This state institution asked the RS two years ago to provide them with this information, but the RS asked them for money for this service. They did not specify the amount.
In 2009, RS adopted a law according to which state institutions cannot obtain free data on the borders of municipalities, villages, plots, buildings, and the like in that entity.
The second entity of BiH, the Federation of BiH (FBiH), submitted the requested data to the CEC, which was also done by Brcko District, the third administrative unit in BiH. In the FBiH and Brcko, the laws do not prescribe charging for this service. The data was immediately provided by the Agency for Statistics of BiH.
What is the election information system?
This system would enable the CEC and anyone using the Internet to find all information about the elections, the exact location of the polling station, the number of voters, the voting results, the number of voters who voted, etc., on the website of the election commission.
The establishment of such a system is one of the directives of the European Union (EU) legislation, which must be fulfilled by each member state.
The CEC BiH planned the project of a unified election information system about 15 years ago and officially launched it in 2010.
It is worth 3.25 million BAM (about 1.66 million euros), and most of the money was provided by foreign donors.
Therefore, on February 12th, 2018, the CEC of BiH sent requests for the delivery of spatial data to the administrations for geodetic and property-legal affairs of the RS and FBiH, and to the Department for spatial planning and property-legal affairs in Brcko.
The Administration for Geodetic and Property Legal Affairs of RS ignored the request of the CEC of BiH, Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz.
