Working Group for Analysis and Improvement of By-Laws of the State Election Commission (SEC), established by the Center for Civic Education (CGO), the Association of Youth with Disabilities of Montenegro (UMHCG) and the Network for Affirmation of Non-Governmental Sector (MANS), successfully ended its task and sent the State Election Commission 39 amendments to five by-laws, as well as ten recommendation, the adoption of which would contribute to the improvement of the electoral system in Montenegro.
Defining final amendments and comments was preceded by four meetings of the Working group, intensive communication between its members, as well as public discussions organized all over Montenegro, during which we met almost 100 representatives of municipal election commissions and political entities from every Montenegrin municipality.
In case the State Election Commission adopted the submitted amendments, Montenegro would for the first time have a clear and precise procedure for consideration of the grounds for a complaint of violation of voting right, while competent election commissions would be given mechanisms for considering allegations from the complaint in a professional and unbiased manner. This would end the bad practice of political outvoting on electoral irregularities and give a significant contribution to the improvement of electoral process in Montenegro.
Moreover, in case the SEC adopts the submitted amendments, secret balloting would be improved, too, as the amendments envisage measures to disable video surveillance at the polling stations and to reduce possibility of taking note of voters.
Adoption of the amendments would reduce the possibility of abuse of postal voting, as they forbid unconscious persons to vote and stipulate that all the relevant information regarding the persons who bring a number of requests for postal voting must be officially recorded, in order to decrease abuse and violation of law with regard to this issue.
The State Election Commission has been given a number of measures that would substantially enhance independence and autonomy of disabled persons’ voting – precise instructions on how to install ballot boxes and polling booths, or screens, as well as a provision defining the change of color of the ballot for blind persons, so that it cannot be seen by the mark of the pen that they have voted, and many other.
The working group founded by CGO, UMHS and MANS, apart from the organizers, involves members of the following political entities and civil society organizations: Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), Socialist People’s Party (SNP), Social Democratic Party (SDP), DEMOS, Social Democrats of Montenegro (SDCG), Positive Montenegro (PCG), Bosniak Party, Democratic Montenegro (Democrats), Civil Movement United Reform Action (GP URA), Liberal Party (LP), FORCA, Albanian Alternative (AA), Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) and Center for Monitoring and Research (CEMI).
Constitution and work of the Work Group is a part of the project “Fair Elections Free from Corruption”, financed by the European Union.
We invite the State Election Commission to consider and adopt the proposed amendments and recommendations as soon as possible, and thus improve the election process, which would be evident in the very first parliamentary election, planned for October 2016. We wish to believe that the State Election Commission will adopt these amendments as soon as possible and unanimously, as they were adopted by all members of the working group from the civil society and political entities as well.
CGO, UMHCG and MANS
