CEMI - Centar za monitoring i istraživanje

In the Parliamentary elections in Montenegro, 74,9% of voters voted by 19 PM

30. Aug. 2020. in news

In the Parliamentary elections in Montenegro, 74,9% of voters voted by 19 PM

CeMI’s PR coordinator, Maja Bjelic, said that, when speaking about the regions, the turnout was as follows:

  • Podgorica 77,7 %
  • South 71,2%
  • North 75%

“In the parliamentary elections held in 2016, the turnout by 19 PM was 71.6%, which is 3.3% less than today’s turnout. In the 2012 elections, the turnout was 66.2%, which is 8.7% less than today” said Bjelic.

A total of 660 irregularities have been reported.

“Out of that number, 37,2% were reported by citizens, and 63,8% by CeMI observers. Irregularities received are in the process of verification and immediately after the completion of that process will be available to citizens on websites www.ferizbori.me and www.izbori.cemi.org.me “, said Bjelic.

Some of the irregularities reported are the following:

Polling station no. 22, Podgorica municipality, Elementary school “Branko Božović”

At the polling station, in the school hallway, a member of the polling board is saying the name and surname of the voter over the phone, as well as the name of the party which the same voter voted for. This is a gross violation of Article 71a of the Law on Election of Councilors and MPs. Violation of the abovementioned article was also noticed at several other polling stations: Polling station 41, Orahovica in Bijelo Polje; Polling Station 106-A, Donja Gorica in Podgorica; Polling station 3-A in Podgorica as well as Polling station 3 in the Elementary School “Luka Simonović” in Niksis.

Polling Station 2, Tuzi municipality, Elementary School “Mahmut Lekić”

Presence of a uniformed member of the Communal Police in the premises of the polling station (in the hallway of the school where there are several polling stations), which is a violation of Article 71 of paragraph 2 of the Law on Election of Councilors and MPs.

Polling station no. 1, Ulcinj municipality, Elementary School “Bosko Strugar”

Several voters were deleted from the voters’ list. None of the authorities gave them the information on which polling station they can vote in. In addition, the website www.biraci.me is out of order, which is why they are unable to find out where exactly they can exercise their right to vote. It has to be noted that we are talking about polling stations where these voters have been voting for decades now.

She called on the citizens to continue reporting irregularities through the Ferizbori application, which is available to all Android and ISOS devices, and can be downloaded from the website www.ferizbori.me.

“Reporting irregularities is also possible via phone number 020 653 736,” said Bjelic.

The right to vote in Montenegro pertains to 540,026 citizens, who vote at a total of 1,217 polling stations.

CeMI observes the parliamentary and local elections in five municipalities, for which it accredited 1,355 observers deployed at almost all polling stations in Montenegro.

The project of monitoring the parliamentary and local elections was supported by the British Embassy in Podgorica, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway in Belgrade.