Serbia Diaspora Voters Must Register by October 3

Serbia’s Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government has notified voters living abroad that they can register to vote in the parliamentary election set for October 25 until midnight on October 3. The deadline is set by law, exactly 20 days before election day, and the application goes to the relevant Serbian diplomatic-consular mission, not to a municipal office back home.

The point of registering is to have the Single Voters’ Register, which the Ministry maintains, record that a particular voter will cast a ballot outside Serbia. The application must include the voter’s full name, one parent’s name, unique personal identification number, the municipality or city and address of residence in Serbia, and the country, municipality or city and address abroad where the voter wants to cast a ballot. The form has to be signed by hand.

The Ministry flags one detail that tends to catch people off guard: anyone who already voted abroad in a previous election has to register again. An old registration does not carry over automatically from one election cycle to the next, no matter how many times a voter has used that right before.

A polling place abroad does not open at every location with an embassy or consulate, only where at least 100 voters register. The Republic Election Commission sets the locations, acting on a proposal from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, once the registrations from each city have been tallied. That means a voter living somewhere with a small Serbian community has no guarantee of a place to vote until that threshold is reached.

The voters’ register closes 15 days before election day, meaning October 9. After that date the Ministry can still make changes, but only up to 72 hours before the vote, or October 21, and only through a formal decision submitted to the Republic Election Commission. Anyone who discovers after the register has closed that they are not listed, despite having the right to vote, has to apply directly to the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government.

Voting itself requires a valid ID card or passport. Getting a new passport through an embassy or consulate abroad can take up to 60 days, so a voter whose document expires before election day has little room to wait until mid-October to sort out a renewal.

The diaspora deadline is one in a string of dates set in motion on September 9, when Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, acting on a Government proposal, dissolved the National Assembly and called the parliamentary election for October 25. The campaign runs 45 days, electoral lists have to be filed by October 4 at the latest, a day after the diaspora deadline, and domestic observers can register through October 17. Political scientist Aleksandar Ivkovic published these deadlines the same day the election was called, and none have changed since.

Any irregularities at a polling place abroad should be reported to the polling board members on site, while a formal complaint seeking to annul the vote at that location goes to the Republic Election Commission within 72 hours of polling stations closing. Between now and October 3, a voter abroad has three weeks to decide whether to apply at all, and less time still if their passport expires before the vote.

The Ministry says all the relevant information, including the exact application form and the list of diplomatic-consular missions accepting registrations, is on its official website, and that voters should not wait for the last day before the deadline, since an incomplete application gets sent back for correction, and there is rarely enough time left abroad to fix it.