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Thank you for this opportunity to address members of AEOBiH. 

AEOBiH will become an increasingly important agent in the electoral arena as the nationalisation process moves forward. The attitude of OSCE member states is that it is time for BiH authorities at all levels to become responsible for the conduct, as well as the financing, of the elections. 

Last year, OSCE pointed out that the national authorities should budget for this year's general election. As you all know, this never happened. I understand that it is difficult to set aside funds for elections and that resources are scarce, but the reality is that BiH will very soon take over all financial and managerial responsibilities for the elections process. 

	Ambassador Robert L. Barry,  Head of OSCE   and Emin Novalic, AEOBIH Secretary

Members of Municipal Election Commissions constitute the main and most important advisory group in the elections field. OSCE will soon meet to decide on the final Rules and Regulations for the general elections in November. The Provisional Election Commission (PEC) would certainly benefit from your suggestions and the conclusions made at this conference. Your role in the future will be to comment on all aspects of the election process and ensure that the elections are well managed at the local level. 

I support the fundamental idea that elections must be decentralised to the extent possible. One balancing factor, however, is that all people should be assured that they can freely choose where they would like to cast their vote. This is why a shift to passive registration is not possible. With passive registration it would be up to the local voter registration people to decide who is to vote where, which is not a feasible and fair solution at this point in time. 

Part of your work is also to ensure that the people understand the way the election system works. This year we are going to introduce preferential voting and people need to be well informed about the mechanisms involved in this kind of voting. OSCE, together with the municipalities, will launch a number of activities to inform voters. One such type of activity will be to carry out pilot runs of the preferential elections, were citizens will be asked, before the election, to "test vote" with a preferential ballot. 

Concerning the voter registers, our most careful investigation concerns people who registered in the past but who have fallen off the register. We have been looking into a few thousands cases where people said their names disappeared. IFES, MECs and other organisations have provided OSCE with the necessary material and cases. We have been able to locate only 20 names where a mistake could be clearly identified and corrected, where their names were registered twice and accidentally removed. The software has been changed to avoid a similar failure in the future. 

That leaves us with all the other cases: people who went to the wrong place to vote, people who thought they were registered but they forgot to re-register when moving to a new place, people who thought that voting by tendered ballot would automatically effect registration, etc. It is of paramount importance that we, OSCE and the municipalities, work together to solve these problems. The first step we must take is to develop and launch an effective registration campaign to ensure that people will go and check their registration status. You have probably heard about an initiative currently considered by OSCE whereby we will contact each voter individually by a letter of invitation to vote and thereby ensure that voters are given a better chance to know if their registration is correct. Such initiatives were carried out by a few MECs during the municipal elections in April and it worked very well. A national campaign is different and it will be important to get your input on this matter. 

Another recommendation mentioned during one of the workshops was that it should be an obligation on the part of the local media to carry information pieces when asked to do so by the MECs. This will be regulated by the Rules and Regulations for the general elections. 

People who are returning to BiH are also a major challenge to the managers of elections. Many of them think that they are registered because the voted by mail in the past. Political forces are manipulating some of these people upon arrival, and they are being transported to certain places for voting. Others wrongly believe that they will lose their refugee status if they vote in the municipality to which they have moved. 

Finally, I would like to thank you all for a dedicated effort in the past elections. The Municipal elections in April were the best election held so far and that owes to your contribution. The Association is an important forum for you to exchange ideas and knowledge concerning election related matters and your work is fully supported by the international community.