The President of the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina Irena Hadžiabdić said that there are no mets in the introduction of new technologies in the General Elections in 2026. years, because the concrete conclusions on the feasibility study and are not insured.
She said that in the conference “New Election Technologies: Experiences from local and applications” organized by Democracy International in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo with the support of the CEC BiH and the coalition for free and honest elections under the magnifying glass.
According to their plan, Hadžiabdić added, the funds were supposed to be secured by the end of April.
It was said to be able to access the election law, and the CEC and Partner Agencies to create a reliable, convincing, credible and secure system and purchase equipment and applications required for general elections.
Hadžiabdić pointed out that the CEC reports they sent before the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“The PSBiH adopted all our reports, except for the second periodic report on which the House of Peoples will discuss on Thursday. In this way, politics gave us support,” Hadžiabdić stated.
Manipulative actions
Hadžiabdić pointed out that new technologies were first tested for local elections in 2024. years, which gave them an insight into the election administration, voters and technical operators.
“What is behind us is a very successful test and they say all the indicators,” said you added that they were waiting for the test and a pilot project for almost eight years.
She also reminded that the first activities for the introduction of technologies were initiated in 2016. at the initiative of the NGO sector and the CEC due to the growing requirements of voters who had very low confidence in the election process in the way he has functioned so far.
“We came to the situation that due to members of polling stations that were noticely appointed at the proposal of political entities, we were not conscious of manipulative actions and in connection with the manipulative actions of the results of the results during counting,” she said.
All that, Hadžiabdić added, greatly violated the confidence in the process and asked for new modalities to get out of that problem.
As a second major problem, there was slow counting, because it is a complex elective system.
“In the last elections, when we had new technologies and when we replaced the presidents of polling stations in a way that we appointed them as persons who must not be related to politics, we many fewer re-numbered,” she said.
Hadžiabdić pointed out that new technologies have shown that the results can be obtained in 40 minutes.
“A 30 percent of the scanned results arrived in five minutes, and for 10 or 15 minutes of results. We had problems in the implementation and presentation of results, but we did for just for the moon and a half, which is great success,” she said.
Tested technologies showed potential
She also added that nothing could do nothing without donors who provided their support.
“Without them, this would not be realistic for the Central Election Commission who lacked all possible knowledge and equipment itself and its functioning and information and communication technologies,” concluded.
The director of the Support Project to the Election Integrity in BiH Tihan B. Blanc assessed that the CEC was a huge step forward as the elections in BiH has been more transparent and responsible, testing more pilot projects in seven municipalities and the Brcko District.
“The pilots have improved the election process in BiH and strengthened the confidence of voters in the election process in such a way that the results of the selection were generated automatically and transferred in just a few minutes after the polls were closed.”
It claims that the differences between the results counted manually and automatically were negligible.
Blanc said that without improvement, the elective administration in BiH could be subject to fraud and suspicion.
“Expand the use of such technology with seven municipalities and the Brčko District is a great endeavor and requires essential efforts, technology, technical experts to use the legal framework for the introduction of such technologies and training for the work of election and civil society, which They need tools for observing such new technologies and choices, “it explained.
Blanc said that these pilot projects were supported by the U.S. government and can assess with certainty how the US government’s policy changes.
“In the US, the two-party support of the integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina is expressed today. However, what the new US administration has not been supported by this type of assistance that would enable the support of CEC’s pilot, new technologies, and other support.
But Blanc is sure that there are other bilateral and multilateral partners who are willing to provide support in that segment.
Participants had the opportunity to test the technologies used during piloting and discuss the possibilities for improving the election process in BiH.
The aim of the conference is to present the findings of the pilot projects of new election technologies, which, which was taken by the CEC BiH during the local elections in October 2024. years, and the coalition under the magnifying glass watched with BiH support.
The conference has enabled the public and election process participants in the Pilot Project, and share the Feasibility Study adopted in the Parliament of BiH during April 2025. year, as well as key steps to the extent of technologies in the general elections in 2026. Year, writes Akta.
