OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina supports workshop on voter register

A workshop on the Central Voter Registry, organized by the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), concluded on 29 May 2018 in Vlašić.

Some 40 participants from the BiH Central Election Commission, Municipal/City Election Commissions, centres for voter registries, the Agency for Identification of Documents, Registries and Data Exchange, local register offices and the Interior Ministries of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska, analysed the current state of the Central Voter Registry in BiH and discussed obstacles and problems related to regularly updating the Registry, with the aim of adding transparency to the election process. 

Ahmed Rifatbegovic, Political Officer at the OSCE Mission to BiH, said: “Accuracy of the Central Voter Registry is important for strengthening public trust in the integrity of the election process. We hope that this event contributed to enhancing co-ordination between responsible actors for accuracy as well as its regular updating to improve the election process.”

The President of the BiH Central Election Commission, Irena Hadžiabdić, highlighted the significance of this workshop and said: “Events like this contribute to improvements and more effective data updating in voter registries.”

The workshop is a part of a three-year project, funded by the European Commission and the Austrian Development Agency, and implemented by ODIHR. The project supports the Western Balkans countries in their efforts to follow up on election observation recommendations in areas related to election management, voter registration and media coverage during election campaigns.