RIK rejects Student List diaspora objections, appeal looms

In brief

• On October 10, RIK rejected as unfounded both Student List objections: one on polling stations and one on voting hours abroad.
• Some commission members argued that the legal 72-hour deadline had expired before the decision.
• The student bloc announced an appeal to the Administrative Court ahead of the October 25 election.

The Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) on Saturday, October 10, rejected as unfounded both objections filed by the “Student List - Students Win” electoral list: one against the decision designating polling stations abroad and another against the decision on when voting begins and ends. The students in blockade replied in a statement that they will appeal to the Administrative Court, and some commission members argued during the session itself that the decision came after the legal deadline.

The date of the session was a matter of speculation until the last day. Commission member Tanasije Marinkovic had said earlier that it would most likely be held on Friday, but it took place on Saturday, the commission’s 52nd, and began around 6:15 p.m. The objection was filed on Wednesday, October 7, around 6 p.m.

What did the Student List challenge?

The first objection asked the commission to reconsider the decision on polling stations and to open additional ones. According to the objection, voters from cities without a polling station were not assigned to others either:

• Manama, Sofia and Santiago
• Doha, Bucharest and Timisoara
• Bratislava, Istanbul and Ankara
• Abu Dhabi and Dubai

Voters from the following cities, it says, were not assigned to existing stations: Graz, Innsbruck, Nuremberg, Hanover, Cologne, Florence, Vicenza, Herceg Novi, Vancouver and Calgary. The filing also says the submitters still have no information on whether the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MSP) asked foreign authorities for help in opening stations, because that cannot be seen from the ministry’s proposal, which RIK later adopted.

The second objection challenged tying voting abroad to the time in Serbia, which means that at some locations people vote at night.

On rejecting the first objection, 11 of 33 members present voted in favor, one abstained and 21 did not vote. On the second, of 28 members present, nine were in favor and 19 did not vote.

Why is the 72-hour deadline in dispute?

RIK member Ivan Sebek said that after the rapporteur’s explanation, the 72-hour deadline from the filing of the objection had expired, and that because the deadline was missed the submitter has the right to turn to the Administrative Court. He proposed that the item not be discussed at all. In his words, RIK had to not only respond within the deadline but also publish the decision.

“I don’t see how we can make a decision after the deadline has expired. As a RIK member, I do not want to take part in this… You did not act in accordance with the law,” Sebek said.

RIK president Vladimir Dimitrijevic replied that the objection would be decided on, that the session had been scheduled within the prescribed deadline and that, according to the rapporteur’s explanation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as the authorized proposer of polling stations, had stuck to its position. The rapporteur on the objection was commission member Dragana Odovic, who proposed rejecting it.

Member Milos Sreckovic said that a lawsuit over alleged administrative silence would be an “abuse of rights,” because the decision is being made “40 minutes after the appeal deadline expired.” He concluded: “I think the objection (of the Student List) is not in order, either substantively or procedurally.” Member Sofija Mandic said she believes RIK came to be late “quite deliberately” and that its officials may be “hiding behind the MSP, and now potentially behind the Administrative Court.”

What else did commission members say?

Members Milan Vasiljevic and David Krstic disputed that RIK is obliged to accept the ministry’s proposal. Marko Zivanovic said that opening polling stations for citizens abroad is “more a political than a legal question.”

Mandic said the commission did not receive from the MSP any data on how many voters registered at which location. According to her, information from the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government (MDULS) shows that in Germany, seven of eight locations have more than 2,500 registered voters, which is the upper limit under the criteria for a polling station abroad (at least 100, at most 2,500 registered).

“The situation is similar in Paris, we have information that over 4,000 people were assigned in Stuttgart… This should not be treated as an ‘opposition issue’… and it will be on record that (RIK president) Dimitrijevic behaved as if this question does not exist,” Mandic said.

Majda Lubura Cosic asked that a polling station be opened in Turkey, as before. “Traditionally there was a station open in Istanbul, (we) have a record that around 100 citizens from the diaspora registered in Turkey, which is mostly Bosniak in Turkey,” she said.

Member Marko Danilovic warned that, for the first time since voting abroad was introduced, RIK will receive a “huge influx of objections from abroad.” “We never had problems with voting abroad, and now we will get thousands of objections,” he added.

On the decision about polling hours, some members judged that the arrangement under which people vote during the night at some locations “defies common sense” and amounts to a “scandal of global proportions, for which the world will laugh at us.” Their names are not given in the sources.

What do the students announce?

In their statement, the students in blockade said RIK, MDULS and the MSP obstructed the registration of citizens abroad for the October 25 election. They claim the registration system was locked on October 3 at 11:59 p.m., that MDULS stopped processing several thousand applications and that German authorities were not contacted about locations outside diplomatic and consular missions. The statement also says the session was convened after the deadline had passed.

“It is clear that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and MDULS, with the silent consent of RIK, carried out conscious and deliberate filtering of applications in order to artificially reduce the number of voters and justify the closing of embassies, the cancellation of polling stations and the imposition of night voting,” the students said.

They announced that “every disputed request, inaccurate piece of data and unlawful rejection will be subject to legal and political accountability.” The ministries’ response to these claims was not published in the sources we reviewed.

What else was decided at the session?

According to the RIK statement, the same session adopted a decision on the form and appearance of ballots, which will be printed in 29 language versions on A-4, A-3 and A-2 paper. The total number of voters in Serbia as of October 9 is 6,450,523, and that many ballots will be printed. Vladimir Dimitrijevic chaired the session.