Association of Election Officials in BiH (AEOBIH) organized two-day professional and scientific conference which was held on April 18–20, 2007 in Neum.

The aim of the Conference was evaluation of election legislation procedure in Bosnia and Herzegovina and critical review of the bodies for conduct of elections, and finding of solutions for improvement of elections conduct. The conference was entitled “Democratic standards of conduct of elections in BiH”.

Participants of the Conference were members of the Central Election Commission of BiH, representatives of the Central Election Commissions of Macedonia, Georgia and Romania, and more than 100 representatives of municipal and city election commissions and AEOBiH members, as well as representatives of OHR, OSCE, and Directorate for CIPS project.

During the final session, in order to improve election legislative procedures in BiH, the following was defined:

CONCLUSIONS FROM WORKSHOPS

WORKSHOP 1

Polling Station Committees – appointment and education

Moderators:

Vedran Hadžovic, Central Election Commission of BiH (CEC BIH)
Milada Papic, AEOBiH Steering Board

Conclusions:

1. Municipal Election Commissions (MEC) needs to appoint the Presidents and Deputy Presidents of Polling Station Committees (PSC), based on a vacancy, from among the employees in administrative bodies and institutions financed from the budget, as well as the students and graduates. The exception: Presidents and Deputy Presidents should not be registered in the voters’ register at that specific polling station.

2. Presidents and Deputy Presidents will go through the training and after their knowledge is tested they will get the certificates, what should be done before the lottery. Afterwards, they will participate in the training for PSC members, who will also get the certificates after the training. The financial means for the training will be provided from the municipal budgets.

3. It is important to work on the criteria for the PSC members, which should be more demanding: The members should be physically and psychologically fit for the work, up to age of 70, and during the applying procedure their political parties should submit their statements that they accept the posts. (This should be an obligation of political parties, and statement form should be made by CEC BiH). They should also state, with responsibility, that they fulfill the criteria for the appointment of PSC member.

4. The Presidents of PSC should be paid better than in the past.

5. Deputy Presidents of PSC should be obliged to be present while the votes are counted.

6. The used forms should be simplified, and in that sense MECs should give its proposals.

7. The member of PSC, who is obliged to identify a voter, should not read the name and surname of the voter out loud (although this is defined by the law, this obligation of the PSC member who is in charge of identification should be deleted because this provision impairs privacy of people and it is private thing of each individual whether he / she will go out and vote or not).

WORKSHOP 2

Municipal Election Commission – the process of appointment and education

Moderators:

Branko Petric, Central Election Commission of BiH (CEC BIH)
Željka Markovic- Sekulic, AEOBiH Steering Board

Conclusions:

1. In the process of appointing MEC – the term "working experience in the elections” should be explained in more details.

2. Regarding the criteria that refers to the educational background i.e. University / Collage Degree requirement, in the exceptional situations the MEC should be left a possibility to appoint the members with a High School as well. The exceptional cases will be established in every particular case by the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina (this will sort out the occasions when there is no possibility to appoint someone with the University degree in municipalities).

Such provision will also leave the possibility of appointing persons who do not fulfill the defined professional criteria, but have been active participants in the election process in the past, as for instance previous members of MEC (the possibility should be formulated in the Rulebook on professional background and qualification).

3. The provisions of the Election Law should be applied consistently, whereas the term “exceptionally” will be used at the minimum.

4. The possibility of increasing the number of the MEC members in big municipalities from current 5, 7 or 9 should be predicated (Banja Luka, Tuzla, Zenica...).

5. The residence criteria as the condition for becoming MEC member in Sarajevo and Mostar should be amended, in order to create a possibility of appointing a member from the area of other municipality within the Mostar or Sarajevo city.

6. The limitation of the number of mandates for the members of MECs should be erased from the Election Law.

7. The training for the MECs should be obligatory each year, and during the election year the training should be completed by 15.08. at the latest.

8. After the elections are completed the Central Election Commission should give its opinion on the implemented elections.

WORKSHOP 3

The role of MECs in protecting the voters’ right
Moderators

Tihomir Vujicic, Central Election Commission of BiH (CEC BIH)
Hasan Bašic, AEOBiH Steering Board

Conclusions:

• It is necessary to train the responsible persons and political party observers in the protection of voters’ rights.

• It is necessary to train the MEC members.
o the training should be performed by the Association of the Election Officials of BiH in cooperation with the Central Election Commission.

• It is necessary to do the analysis of the MEC’s competences in solving of the appeals, in order to transfer some of the competences to the Central Election Commission, apart from those already defined by law, in order to relieve the MECs.

• It is important to question the existing measures legally pronounced by MEC.

WORKSHOP 4

Recall of Mayor (the analysis of legal decisions)

Moderators:

Vehid Šehic, Central Election Commission of BiH (CEC BIH)
Miladin Rudinac, AEOBIH

Conclusions:

1. The Association of Election Officials of BiH will address the following recommendations to the Ministry of Local Self-Governance of the RS and the Ministry of Justice of Federation BiH to make the following through changes and amendments of the Law on principles of the local self-governance in the Federation of BiH and the Law on local self-governance in RS:

1.1. The relations between the local authority organs should be defined with more clarity;
1.2. The conditions under which an urgent convening of municipal assembly/municipal council takes place should be established;
1.3. It should be defined that the Mayor in Federation BiH, in case of absence or prevention, is replaced by the Finance Director, or to apply the solution of the RS, by which the Mayor is replaced by the Deputy Mayor, appointed by the Municipal Assembly at the proposal of the Municipal Mayor.

2. In the Election Law of the RS and the Law on Direct Election of Mayor in Federation it should be clearly determined what municipal assembly/council needs to fulfill, in order to initiate the procedure of recalling a Mayor.

3. The laws from the previous item should be amended with the provision, which banns the recalling procedure in the last year of the Mayor’s mandate.

4. The entity laws should have a provision that defines a minimum deadline after a failed recall, by which there is no possibility of initiating a recall again.

5. In BiH Federation it is necessary to change the provision on the direct election of the Mayor so that the Mayor is elected by a majority votes, in stead of the current preferential voting system.

WORKSHOP 5

Role of the Centers for voter lists and other questions

Moderators:
Dr. Suad Arnautovic, Central Election Commission (CEC BiH)
Božica Mandaric, CIPS

CONCLUSIONS

1. It is necessary to uniformly pass the acts (decision, rulebook etc) on establishing the Voters’ Registration Centre with concrete job descriptions for the recruited personnel of the Centre. The municipalities that still do not have the acts on their internal organization, as well as the job descriptions of the working personnel should do that ASAP. The personnel of the Center should be engaged in these activities in the non-election period as well.

2. The training of people in the Voters’ Registration Centers should be done alongside the planned training for the MEC, based on the training program for the elections implementation passed by CEC BiH.

3. The Instruction on establishing the Voters’ Registration Centers should be amended, in terms of the establishment, competencies, responsibility and deadlines („Official Gazette BiH“, No. 36/06), in order to resolve precisely all the confusions noticed in implementation of this instruction.

4. The special attention will be given to the information exchange and coordination of the hospitals work, work of municipal registry offices and the Ministry of Interior in the segment of updating the information on the deceased voters.

5. The voters should be publicly invited to correct the addresses reported in their CIPS documentation (in case they moved and changed address within their residing municipality, or moved to another municipality). Also BIH citizens with the residence in Brcko District will be invited to use their legal right and express their voting option to the competent organs of Brcko district, for the elections at the entity i.e. state levels. We note that at the previous elections in 2006 there were 25.000 voters who have not expressed their voting options.

6. It is necessary to connect the information technology equipment between the Central Voters’ Register of BIH and Central Election Commission BiH in order to train people at Voters’ Registration Centre by the end of 2007.

7. It is urgent to establish the criteria on marking the street names and their numbers by the end of September 2007 at the latest, what falls under the competence of the Ministry for Local Self Governance, the Federal Ministry of Justice and the Cantonal Ministries of Justice, i.e. the competent municipal organs (there are the streets with no street numbers, the street numbers are doubled, etc.)

8. It is urgent for the CEC BiH to pass the revised version of the Rulebook on governing the Central Voters’ Register („Official Gazette BiH“, N. 40/06, 48/06, 55/06, 61/06, 71/06 and 83/06), i.e. to pass a new Rulebook that will solve the issues within the competencies of CEC BiH with better quality.

9. It is necessary to pay more attention to the issue of sudden changes in the addresses (residential status) on the occasion of early elections of municipal mayors, just in order to prevent possible manipulations.

10. It is necessary to ensure a simpler procedure of gaining and using the Central Voters’ Excerpts for the local purposes (election of the local communities).

11. All persons with refugee status (with the residence abroad and the right to vote by mail) who still have not submitted the request for personal IDs, should be requested to do that during this year. The same applies to BiH citizens with the temporary residence outside BiH.

12. The Direction for the implementation of CIPs project should be organized as independent administrative body within the Council of Ministers with competences in the election process. This will insure that this important state institution with its title and competences is permanently organized and established, without “CIPS project” in its title.

13. The possibility of allowing MECs to use the voters’ addresses in order to address to the voters additional information on the polling stations up to two days before the elections’ day, should be also considered. CEC BIH should pass such a provision in the Election Law that enables the MEC to inform the citizens directly on the allocated polling stations, 48 hours before the elections at the latest.

14. The Ministry of Civil Affairs is invited to amend the Law on Residence in order to insure the process of checking and proving one’s residence when submitting the request for a residence report. The competent body is one to check the reported address.

15. With aim of informing the voters on the exact polling station locations, it is recommendable to publish in the local media the list of polling stations two days prior to the elections’ day.

16. The deadline for the receiving the ballots from the by-mail voters should be by the elections day at the latest, what also means that the whole voting procedure for the by- mail voters is completed within the 10 days after the elections’ day. In order to simplify the voting procedure for the by-mail voters, they should be also enabled to submit their envelops to the diplomatic councils in their residing countries, so the same are sent out further to CEC by mail.

Secretariat of the Association of Election Officials in BiH

Sarajevo, 24.04.2007.