The Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CEC BiH) adopted a decision at today’s session, May 7, on calling the General Elections, to be held this year on Sunday, October 4.
Following the session, a press conference was held where the head of the CEC, Jovan Kalaba, addressed the public. He began by reminding that the elections will be held for the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the National Assembly of the RS entity, the President and Vice Presidents of RS, and for ten cantonal assemblies in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
What Is Prohibited for Politicians?
Kalaba pointed out that the CEC BiH today adopted instructions on deadlines and the sequence of activities. He reminded that every adult citizen of BiH, upon the issuance of an ID card, is recorded in the Central Voter Register (which closed on May 6 at midnight). Citizens abroad who wish to register to vote can do so until July 21, 2026, via the official CEC website and the “e-izbori” portal, where a user manual is provided. “This is available as of today.”
He added that political parties and independent candidates can submit applications for certification electronically from May 8 to May 22, while the submission of candidate lists begins on June 24 and lasts until July 6. “Once the checks and certifications are completed, the CEC will publish all candidate lists in the official gazette and daily press by August 20.” The campaign begins on September 4, and until then, political advertising and premature campaigning are strictly prohibited. Kalaba underlined that the CEC can sanction political subjects for violating these rules, as well as for spreading disinformation: “We are authorized to initiate proceedings and impose sanctions.”
He then stated that they have requested 24.3 million KM for the General Elections, of which 11 million is for polling station committees and 5 million for service contracts. According to the Election Law, competent institutions must ensure the funds within 15 days of calling the elections, i.e., by May 22.
“I also wish to recall the previously approved funds of 112 million for the implementation of a multi-year project to introduce new technologies. The CEC BiH has made a decision on selecting the most favorable bidder, and we held a meeting with them yesterday. A challenging period lies ahead of us, as we have lost time due to lengthy public procurement procedures, but I believe we will have the new technologies ready for the upcoming elections,” Kalaba explained.
New Technologies: This is All You Need to Know
A novelty in these elections will be the voting method, involving the use of scanners for vote tallying. In the coming period, the CEC will conduct a detailed information campaign; meanwhile, CEC member Irena Hadžiabdić today provided more details regarding the new technologies.
Therefore, biometric devices for additional identity verification will be used, specifically, the authentication of every voter by taking fingerprints: “In this way, it is no longer possible to vote for another person, a deceased person, or instead of someone else using a different ID document. Furthermore, thanks to these devices, we will have statistics throughout the day, not only on voter turnout but also on the gender and age structure of the voters.”
The ballot boxes will be connected to scanners. Voters will take four ballots (three in Brčko) and insert them into the ballot box connected to the scanner, followed by an electronic tally of every vote: All this data is then electronically transferred to the CEC.
“Thanks to this, for the first time, we expect the public to have insight into the results at all levels of government just a few hours after the polling stations close,” said Hadžiabdić, emphasizing that the manual counting process has also been retained: “We will record the results of the manual count in a form and transfer them to a specific application; the CEC will then, after announcing the first preliminary results, publish incomplete results successively. Municipal election commissions will move all material to the Main Counting Center, which will have a massive task, completely new scanning and manual counting. If there is a huge difference in votes that cannot be explained, or if it wasn’t a result of an accidental error, a manual recount of all ballots is mandatory, and the manual count from the Main Counting Center, where we have full control, will prevail.”
Another important thing we learned is that an ‘X’ will no longer be marked on the ballot; instead, voters will have to completely fill in or color the circle of the political subject they are voting for. This will ensure there are no doubts about whether the device scanned the vote correctly.
