Transparency International in BiH calls on the competent judicial institutions to investigate the evidence collected by the Central Election Commission regarding mass electoral fraud that has been recurring in the same pattern over several election cycles. The CEC annulled the early elections for the President of the Republic of Srpska at 136 polling stations during yesterday’s session and presented scandalous information about mass identity theft and the addition of votes for voters who did not turn out to vote.
Specifically, at the disputed locations, voter signatures were found to be forged, mostly as stated in the annulment decision. of the elections, about “obvious forgeries that even a layperson can recognize” and cases where it is evident that the same individuals left two or more signatures. It was stated at the session that a much more detailed analysis would require significantly more time, and it should be noted that the same pattern of mass vote theft was previously proven. by numerous court verdicts through testimonies of voters who did not turn out to vote and their identities were misused.
TI BiH had previously published an analysis of vote distribution in relation to turnout which showed a significant increase in the share of votes for candidates of the ruling coalition at polling stations that reported unnaturally high turnout. Additionally, an analysis of turnout at different intervals based on additional CEC data was published, and at some polling stations, it turned out that one voter voted every 53 seconds.
These statistical data required further investigation and the collection of concrete evidence, and it should be emphasized that the CEC conducted a very significant process of determining violations of electoral rights, in which graphological examinations were carried out at 270 polling stations.
On that occasion, in addition to voters whose signatures were forged, over 2000 voters were found to have been signed even though they did not have any valid personal documents. It was stated at yesterday’s session that IDDEEA could not provide signature samples for such individuals to conduct a graphological analysis. It should be emphasized here that it was previously warned that outdated voter lists leave a huge space for such electoral manipulations because they include a large number of people who have left BiH.
Despite such occurrences, observers and members of the polling boards recorded only 13 objections to the electoral process in the records, which raises numerous other questions. It is important to note that the phenomenon of trading polling boards by political parties was previously observed, and in numerous court proceedings for electoral fraud monitored by TI BiH, observers often testified that they did not see anything suspicious even though it was proven in court that votes were massively added for voters who did not vote, and even for those who died before the elections and were not removed from the voter list.
Therefore, it is again important to emphasize the significance of introducing electoral technologies for voter identification and vote counting, as a large number of citizens have lost trust in such an electoral process.
