Concern Voiced Over Montenegro Electoral Roll
By Milena Milosevic
Civil society groups say that complaints about Montenegro’s electoral roll have not been addressed, raising concern about the outcome of the October 14 election.
The Network for Affirmation of Non-Governmental Sector, MANS, on Friday said that the central electoral roll contained the names of at least 14,267 voters who had one or more “doubles”, that is, people with the same names, surnames and addresses but with different ID numbers.
Opposition media rushed to publish the names of some of the people who can apparently vote more than once on election day and called on the authorities to correct the mistakes.
Government officials said they were dealing with any remaining glitches. Ivan Brajovic, the Interior Minister, said on Friday that each mistake was being addressed immediately.
On Wednesday, the Ministry for Information Society and Technology denied that there were any errors in the roll of voters, saying that civil society groups were basing their claims on incomplete and inaccurate information.
The Ministry added that all the political parties can track the state of the electoral roll by visiting a special website designed for election contenders alongside one designed for the use of voters.
Montenegro’s parliamentary elections are due on October 14.
The campaign kicked off in earnest last week, as Thursday’s deadline approached for the submission of electoral lists to the State Electoral Commission.
