Electronic voting/Celibashi: It does not solve the problem of buying and selling votes

2024-02-27 11:50:00, Aktualitet CNA

Electronic voting/Celibashi: It does not solve the problem of buying and selling

The head of the CEC, Ilirjan Celibashi, during his speech at the Electoral Reform Commission, which is taking place online, spoke about electronic voting.

Celibashi emphasized that a political decision should be made regarding the extension of electronic voting throughout the territory.

The Chief Commissioner underlines that electronic voting has very high costs and requires human resources.

"Procedures and deadlines for issuing results. A positive tradition for appeals has been created, but I have the idea that in technical terms we should have some adjustments in appeals. Administrative sanctions need to be repaired, in some cases they are disproportionate and without sense.

For some serious violations, the measure of the administrative sanction is quite negligible. It is not very appropriate for the assembly to commit to the organic structure of the CEC, even though it guarantees integrity, but it needs to be revised to make it more flexible.

Electronic voting will have to make a political decision first. Willingness to stretch based on past experience. In a way, as a commissioner, even within the CEC we have different views, and I also support in principle the wider scope of electronic voting than we are applying.

I am not very convinced that we should immediately extend it to the entire territory, but if the policy is agreed and says yes it is useful to extend it to the entire territory, you will have to keep two factors in mind, the costs and the human factor. Regarding the people who will deal with the technical aspect of the development of this process.

Although there were strong disputes regarding the development of electronic voting, especially in Elbasan, from the verification we had 100% compliance with the ballots and digital votes.

Would it make sense in the case of using the equipment to commit the commissioners only to the party? What sense will there be for those people there to be only political. The human factor is very important because it can destroy the process, so we as the CEC need to find the right people, we need people that we have found so far", said Celibashi.

On the other hand, Celibashi declares that electronic voting does not solve every problem, for example not that of buying and selling votes.

"Shouldn't we also review the number of voting centers? We are doing an exercise to see how effectively the device is used in each VC, I think it makes sense that in urban areas, even though the VC has 1000 voters, 300-400 vote.

Voting for those living abroad should be addressed differently. So, if we are going to do electronic voting, we have to reduce the number of VCs. Therefore, I think that the decision for electronic voting is difficult. So, it doesn't solve every problem. For example, electronic voting does not solve all problems: for example, not that of buying and selling votes," said Celibashi./ CNA