Opposition Member of Commission for Voter Rolls: Suspicious Addresses, Other Anomalies Uncovered

Elections (BETAPHOTO/DRAGAN GOJIC)

Commission for Voter Rolls member from the Party of Freedom and Justice Ana Godevac stressed on Sept. 24 that members of the Commission have uncovered suspicious addresses, registered "phantom" individuals without citizenship and other anomalies.

"We are gathering evidence, we demand a response from institutions and we are alarming the public. We will inform citizens of everything, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and European institutions," Godevac told the Danas newspaper. Asked whether any progress has been achieved with regard to the ODIHR's recommendations for voter rolls she replied that the incumbent authorities have been using the same formula for years - compose a law, create a body, meet things nominally and then render meaningless everything that was placed on paper.

"The ODIHR asked for a thorough revision of electoral registers and the accompanying citizen registers.  The Commission has been created, which is an institutional change, but the revision for which it was created has not been completed to this day," she said, adding that the ODIHR itself concluded that some recommendations have not been met in the draft legislation, as well as that it called for a clear revision of voter rolls, but that this has not been completed.

"The authorities can say that it has met the ODIHR's recommendations, but ultimately the ODIHR will give its opinion on how the recommendations have actually been carried out because this regime has violated what it wrote on paper," she said.