Stolac Initiative is seeking an extension of the deadline for mail-in voting

Stolac Initiative is seeking an extension of the deadline for mail-in voting

STOLAC, September 20 (FENA) – The Initiative for Stolac is asking the BiH Central Election Commission (CEC) to extend the deadline for receiving votes by mail to 25 days from the day of the holding of local elections.

According to the Rulebook on the conduct of elections, which was valid in the last elections in 2018, the deadline for receiving votes by mail was two days from the day of the elections.

“When we take into account the fact that the legal deadline for publishing the confirmed election results is 30 days from the day of the elections, we can clearly see all the nonsense of such a provision,” the Stolac Initiative believes.

They point out that “it is especially meaningless for such a provision to remain in force during the Covid-19 pandemic when all international shipments have been significantly slowed down.”

They add that several thousand voters residing in America have registered to vote by mail and that for the vast majority of them the registration has not yet been confirmed, i.e., the process of data processing and verification of the application has not been completed yet.

“With this pace of processing applications in the CEC for voting by mail, in the conditions of pandemic and with such short deadlines, there is no chance that voters from overseas countries can get the materials on time and send them on time to reach the CEC BiH by November 17, 2020, i.e., two days after the elections”, states the Stolac Initiative.