Repeat Voting for Minority Councils Set for November 22
Serbia's electoral commission has set Sunday, November 22 for repeat voting at five polling stations in Bujanovac and Subotica. Three councils wait for seats.
The Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) has ruled that repeat voting in the direct elections for national minority councils will be held on Sunday, November 22, 2026. The decision was made at the commission’s 82nd session on November 13, chaired by RIK deputy chair Marko Jankovic.
The date had been an open question since the previous session. At the 81st session on November 12, which we covered, the commission annulled the vote at five polling stations, and no date for the new vote was known at the time. All that was said was that it would be set within the legal deadline of three days.
Where will people vote again?
The repeat vote involves three national councils and five polling stations in total:
- Albanian National Council: polling station 7 in the village of Breznica near Bujanovac, in the primary school, and polling station 17 in the village of Samoljica;
- Bunjevac National Council: polling station 31 in Subotica, at the Faculty of Economics;
- Hungarian National Council: polling station 10 in the Subotica primary school “Secenji Istvan” and polling station 32 in the “Jovan Mikic” primary school.
The data for each of these stations shows a mismatch between the number of ballots and the number of voters. In Breznica, the box held 267 ballots, while 236 voters had cast a vote. In Samoljica, the votes for the lists added up to 370, 362 voters had voted and the box held 362 ballots. At Subotica polling station 31, the box held 21 ballots, and 20 voters had voted. At station 10 there were 149 ballots and 148 voters, and at station 32 there were 273 ballots and 272 voters.
What else did RIK adopt?
At the same session, the commission adopted a decision on the form, design, color and content of the ballots and of the control sheet used to check that the ballot box is in order, along with a decision on the number of ballots for the repeat vote. RIK’s announcement does not give the number of ballots per council, nor the opening and closing times of the polling stations on November 22.
On the same day, RIK issued decisions allocating seats to the members of the councils of eighteen minorities: Ashkali, Bosniak, Bulgarian, Vlach, Greek, Egyptian, Macedonian, German, Polish, Roma, Romanian, Rusyn, Slovak, Slovenian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Czech.
Which councils have no seats until November 22?
Seats on the Albanian, Bunjevac and Hungarian councils will not be allocated until the repeat vote is held. Of the 21 councils in our earlier overview of preliminary results, eighteen now have their seats allocated, and three are waiting for November 22.
The Hungarian portal Pannon RTV reported today that voting will take place at two polling stations in Subotica for the Hungarian council, while the portal Bujanovacke reported on November 13 that Albanians in Breznica and Samoljica are heading back to the polls.
