Opening of polling stations and the election materials

There are 2490 polling stations in the entire territory of the Republic of Kosovo. Based on the reports of DiA observers, 165 polling stations (PSs) opened with delays.
Lack of sensitive materials was reported in 1.5% of PSs.

 Election campaign material

Although the law (LoE, Article 85) stipulates that the election campaign material shall be removed within a radius of 100 meters from inside spaces and around Polling Centres, such material was found close to 3.4% of PCs, respectively:
Election campaign material was observed near the school at the polling centre no. 1927E (“Shkëndija” School in Prishtina), while the violation was reported to the ECAP by DiA.

 Access of persons with disabilities to voting

It is reported that 44.7% of polling stations have not provided access to persons with disabilities.

The progress and security of the voting process

Presence of unauthorized persons was observed at 68.3% of polling stations. 

Some of the cases in Polling Centres/Polling Stations:

·         From the polling centre no. 2004A/05R (“Motrat Qiriazi” School) in Prizren was reported that an unauthorized person was present inside a polling station. The same person left at 8 a.m.

·         An unauthorized person was present inside a polling station at the polling centre no.1925E/02R (“Meto Bajraktari” School) in Prishtina. The same person was allowed to stay upon a decision from the MEC although such decision was not announced.

·         From the polling centre no. 1918E/03R (“Gjin Gazulli” School) in Prishtina was reported for presence of militants from two coalitions (namely: LDK-AKR coalition and PDK-AAK-NISMA coalition) who were first introduced as observers and then were removed from the voting centre by the school principal.

·         From the polling centre no. 2008R/02R (“Luciano Matroni” School) in Prizren was reported that a person was allowed to vote although spray was spotted at his fingers.

·         From the polling centre no. 1922E/05R (“Emin Duraku” School) in Prishtina was reported that an unauthorized representative was staying inside a polling station without accreditation.

 

There are no reports of any incidents where the police had to intervene.

DiA will observe the electoral process throughout the day until the end of the counting and results process. Information from the field will be available to the public in real time.

DiA calls upon all commissioners, political party observers and all other participants in the elections process to be committed to meeting their obligations in order to guarantee free and fair elections. DiA reminds you that any violation during the voting day, the counting process and in general during the entire elections process is punishable by up to 5 years of imprisonment.

 

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Democracy in Action (DiA), the largest national coalition of non-governmental organizations for elections observation, is monitoring the electoral process for early parliamentary elections throughout the entire territory of Kosovo. DiA has engaged 2,500 accredited observers to closely monitor the progress of the electoral process at each polling station in Kosovo, while 100 mobile teams, 150 volunteers in the Call Centre and dozens of additional staff have been put in support of this contingent.

 

DiA observers will observe the opening of polling stations, the voting process, the closure of polling stations and the counting process.