Diaspora Voters: New Polling Site Deadline Is September 24
Voters abroad where a polling station exists have until October 3, but where none exists yet, the deadline is September 24. North American voters want new sites in Vancouver, Los Angeles and Houston.
According to the calendar of the Republic Election Commission (RIK), voters living abroad have until midnight on October 3 to apply through an embassy or consulate to vote from abroad in the October 25 election. But that deadline, Serbian citizens in North America warn, only applies where a polling station already exists. Where one doesn’t, the real deadline is September 24, and that’s why the diaspora has spent the past week ramping up efforts to request new polling sites.
“The legal deadline to submit your application to the consulate is October 3, but that’s only if a polling station already exists. Since we don’t have one, our real deadline is actually September 24, which is very tight, and that puts people in a bit of a situation where they haven’t fully understood these deadlines,” says Simona Popovic from Los Angeles, one of the organizers of the initiative.
Under the rules, a polling station abroad only opens where at least 100 voters have registered. That threshold is behind the push Popovic and her fellow organizers have made in recent days to collect applications, above all in cities where Serbia currently has neither an embassy nor a consulate with a polling station.
Which Cities Are Requesting Their Own Polling Station
Requests are coming in from several cities across North America. “That whole community naturally includes all of North America: Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Houston, with support from our people in New York and Washington, who already have a polling station, as well as from Chicago, since they already have a polling station at the consulates or the embassy in Washington,” says Nebojsa Stankovic, who lives in Miami.
The push comes down to distance. Voters from Los Angeles are currently assigned to the consulate in Chicago.
“Our competent consulate is Chicago, which is, roughly, about a four hour flight, let’s say from Los Angeles to Chicago, so that’s a very heavy burden, both in time and money, for a voter who wants to vote,” says Popovic.
It’s a similar story in Canada, where some voters would have to travel to Ottawa or Toronto if no new site opens. “We hope it won’t come to a situation where they redirect all of us to Ottawa or to Toronto. I mean, that’s six to seven hours of travel by plane, a different time zone,” says Ivana Djordjevic from Canada.
Stankovic also points to an additional risk: approval to vote abroad doesn’t guarantee an actual place to vote. “It could happen that, even though I’ve been approved to vote abroad, no polling station opens in Miami, and then I’d have to go to Washington, and I might not even be allowed to vote there, because by law it can’t be changed on such short notice,” he says.
Why the Decision on New Sites Remains Uncertain
The decision on whether to open a new polling station rests with RIK, and diaspora voters have no way to speed that assessment up themselves. Lawyer Zoran Alimpic told N1 that the odds of RIK granting these requests are slim. “It depends on the will of their majority. And unfortunately, I know that will is tied to an estimate of which voters are more numerous at which polling station,” Alimpic says. He adds that the authorities are likely well aware that most voters registering now, who didn’t register in previous years, probably won’t vote for them, so in his view there’s little reason to expect these sites will be approved.
Sources also disagree on when the actual list of new polling stations will be known. The portal nsreporter, citing RIK’s own timetable, states that polling stations abroad are determined no later than 20 days before election day, meaning by October 5. CRTA representative Tamara Brankovic told Insajder that it should already be known by October 4, the day after the registration deadline expires, in which countries polling stations will actually open.
Under RIK’s election calendar, the unified voters list closes on October 9, and polling stations will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on election day, October 25. An application to vote abroad requires a voter’s full name, one parent’s name, personal identification number (JMBG), home address in Serbia, and the address abroad where the voter wants to cast a ballot.
It isn’t in dispute that 2023 saw the highest number of diaspora voters ever registered, across 35 countries. What is disputed is the figure often cited alongside it: according to CRTA and several outlets that covered that election at the time, around 32,216 voters registered to vote, not 40,000 as sometimes reported.
Until RIK publishes a final list of polling stations abroad, voters in cities without a site of their own remain in the same uncertainty as before: their registration deadline runs out on September 24, and the answer on whether they’ll get a polling station closer to home won’t come until after that.
