SSP Reports 42 Disputed Voter Roll Addresses to ODIHR

The Freedom and Justice Party (SSP) announced on August 7 that it is forwarding documentation to the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the OSCE body better known by its acronym ODIHR, on what the party says amounts to blocking real oversight of the voter roll. The letter was signed by Ana Godjevac and Marko Dimic, members of the Voter Roll Review Commission representing SSP.

The letter states that the Interior Ministry (MUP) never responded to a request concerning 42 specific addresses that the party considers suspicious. The legal deadline for supplying such data is eight days, and SSP says it passed without a single document. That is why the party is now turning to the body that oversees the Commission’s own work.

What exactly was requested for those 42 addresses?

The request was not vague. For each address, SSP asked for documentation showing who organized and paid for the residence registration, who filed it, who approved it and on what evidence, and whether a field check was ever carried out. Those are four separate links in the same process, from the person filing the application to the official who approves it, and each one leaves a paper trail in MUP’s records.

In the same statement, SSP noted that more than 133,000 people acquired Serbian citizenship between 2020 and 2025. The party added a caveat: it is not disputing their right to citizenship, only asking that authorities determine who among them was registered at a fictitious address in order to get onto the voter roll.

SSP’s assessment of how fictitious registrations come about was spelled out in the statement:

Phantom voters do not appear on their own. Someone organizes and brings them in, someone pays for the entire procedure, someone files the registrations, someone approves them, and SNS uses their votes to stay in power.

The party also said it will not let the Commission become window dressing, or the voter roll “a weapon of SNS.” In SSP’s view, the government now faces a choice between two outcomes: allowing institutions to cooperate, or confirming the accusation by refusing to.

A body ODIHR itself recommended

The Voter Roll Review Commission is an independent body created through amendments to Serbia’s election laws, and ODIHR listed it in its own reports as a recommendation that had been implemented. That is the core of this appeal: SSP is not complaining to an outside observer, but to the institution that recorded its own recommendation as fulfilled.

The argument in the letter goes further than the individual addresses. Commission members, it says, have no real auditing access to the databases. They have to request data from the very institutions that control those databases, which makes any response dependent on those institutions’ willingness to provide it. If that is accurate, the formal requirement has been met while oversight has not, and the recommendation exists only on paper.

The question of controlling election materials is not new. We previously reported on the Bureau for Social Research (BIRODI) and its request for election forensics and access to polling station data, and both initiatives point to the same problem: the data exists, the state holds it, and whoever is supposed to verify it has to ask for it.

A calendar pressing both sides

Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) leader Milos Vucevic said on TV Pink that he expects elections to be called very soon, in less than 100 days. He predicted a tough campaign and an uncertain race, and said that if the “Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia Must Not Stop” list loses, it would accept the result and continue its political work from opposition.

The opposition offered a sharper assessment. Democratic Party (DS) leader Srdjan Milivojevic told the portal Simptom that the 2012 elections were the last free and fair vote in Serbia, and that since then the decisive role has been played, in his words, by vote counters and phantom voters rather than by actual voters.

If elections are indeed called within the timeframe Vucevic mentioned, the time left to clean up the voter roll would be measured in weeks. Checking 42 addresses is a matter of a few days’ work for a service with access to residence records. MUP’s response, or lack of one, is now a measurable fact in itself: the deadline has passed, and the letter has gone to Warsaw.