Serbia Repeat Vote Opens at 53 Polling Stations
Polling stations in 24 towns and municipalities opened at 7 a.m. for 24,438 voters, and Crta says its observers were present at the opening of all of them.
The repeat vote in Serbia’s snap parliamentary election began on Sunday, November 1, at 7 a.m. at 53 polling stations in 24 towns and municipalities. The stations stay open until 8 p.m., and 24,438 voters are eligible to cast ballots, Tanjug reports.
The election monitoring mission of the nongovernmental organization Crta said on Facebook this morning that its observers were present at the opening of all the polling stations. “Our observers were present this morning at the opening of all polling stations for the repeat vote. We are here until the end,” Crta said in the post. The organization had announced earlier that, as on October 25, its observers would be there from the preparations for opening a polling station through the vote count and the publication of the voting record.
Where is voting taking place today?
Voting is being repeated at individual polling stations in Aleksinac, Backa Topola, Babusnica, Bojnik, Vladicin Han, Indjija, Zemun, Kanjiza, Koceljeva, Kula, Krusevac, Kursumlija, Loznica, Ljig, Majdanpek, Novi Pazar, Petrovac na Mlavi, Pirot, Pozarevac, Prokuplje, Subotica, Trstenik, Cuprija and Sid. The Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) printed 24,438 ballots, matching the number of voters registered at those stations.
Added up by town, Aleksinac has the most repeat stations, eight in all (numbers 3, 13, 16, 24, 42, 46, 47 and 74). Vladicin Han follows with seven, and Koceljeva and Majdanpek have five each. Voting is repeated at four stations in Backa Topola and two in Zemun, while most of the remaining municipalities have one.
The first reported opening was in Zemun. Polling station No. 1, at the “Svetozar Miletic” primary school, opened at 7 a.m., and a few citizens were waiting to go in, a Tanjug reporter on site said. There are 1,364 eligible voters at that station.
Why is the vote being repeated?
Under the Law on the Election of Members of Parliament, voting at a polling station is repeated when the results cannot be established or when the vote has been annulled. RIK issues the decision on a repeat vote within three days of publication of the local commission’s ruling, and the vote itself must be held within 10 days of that ruling. We wrote about the RIK decision earlier.
The breakdown is as follows:
- at 31 polling stations, the competent local electoral commissions found that the results of the October 25 vote could not be established
- at 22 polling stations, the same commissions annulled the vote
The reasons differ from place to place. In Zemun, the vote at polling station No. 1 was annulled because the number of voters who signed that they had voted last week did not match the number of ballots. In Indjija, voting is being repeated at polling station No. 20, in the “Petar Kocic” primary school, where 1,277 voters from six streets are registered. In its ruling No. 013-3-133/2026-1 of October 25, the municipal electoral commission stated that none of the members of the polling board had signed the record of its work, although at least three were required to, so the results could not be established. The ruling does not explain why the board members did not sign.
Election silence and deadlines after the polls close
Election silence began at midnight on October 30 and lasts until the polling stations close at 8 p.m. today. Until then, election campaigning and any attempt to influence voters are prohibited.
By law, the polling board establishes the results at the polling station itself, and the local electoral commission has 96 hours after the polls close to adopt a summary report for all stations in its territory. RIK then has 96 hours from receipt of all summary reports to publish the overall report with the distribution of seats. The deadlines for constituting the new National Assembly begin to run only once the final results are published.
Eighteen lists took part in the October 25 election, nine of which hold the status of national minority lists. Based on RIK’s preliminary results, the sources cite slightly different figures. Tanjug and Novosti write that, with 8,338 of 8,392 polling stations counted, the Student List won 53.04 percent of the votes counted, while N1 and Danas cite 8,339 counted stations and 53.03 percent of the votes of those who turned out. The “Aleksandar Vucic - United Serbia” list has 38.97 percent in all of those sources.
Turnout figures for the repeat vote had not been published at the time of writing.
