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Some of the main changes done to the Electoral Code
Drafted by: Niazi Jaho, AHC Legal Advisor
Tirana March 2 , 2005
Voters List
1. Different from the previous Electoral Code, the law assigns mainly to the chairmen of the local power units the duty to draft, publish and correct the voters’ lists. Further more, in the article 178 of the Code, it is stated that
the people assigned to drafting and adopting the voters lists, they are prosecuted if they include in these lists fake data or exclude voters from the voters lists.
2. The voters list is drafted for every zone and polling station. In the voters list there is marked the unit of the local power that has drafted and adopted the voters list as well as the number of the polling station. The process of
drafting the voters list for the parliamentary elections of this year starts by March 2005, whereas the preliminary lists are announced not later than March 31, 2005.
3.The head of the local government unit, within 30 days from the publication of the preliminary voters list makes the announcement in writing for any voter included in the preliminary voters list in the voting station.
4. According to the Electoral Code of the year 2003 (unchanged), it’s only the chairman of the local government unit who deals with the correction of the voters list. According to the changed Electoral Code, the right to correct the
list remains only with the voters , not with the political parties, as it was previously prescribed.
5.The voters are entitled to seek the correction of lists also after the publication of the final list (the final list is proclaimed not later than 20 days prior to election day). In this case, the request of the voter that is not
registered in the final list is submitted to the district court until 24 hours prior to the election day.
6.Students are entitled to vote in their locations. The application to be registered based on the location is submitted to the deanery of the faculty where the student is enrolled. The Minister of Education and Science at the request
of the Minister of Local Power and Decentralization, not later than 5 months from the term conclusion of the Parliament, seeks from the rectorates of the Universities to draft the voter lists that want to vote based on their location, and that live there during the period from 60 to 30 days from the date of the term conclusion of the Parliament.
7.Deaneries submit to the respective rectorates the list of the students that have applied to vote in their location.
Vote Counting
8.According to the changes made to the Electoral Code, vote counting shall not be done in the polling stations, but in appropriate zone-based rooms.
9.mmediately after the conclusion of the voting, the voting boxes with the ballots and the box with the election materials is sent to the location where the ballots are counted, not later than 3 hours from the closing of the voting.
8 Shipment of the boxes shall be made with a vehicle with the VCC members and the secretary of the voting station on it. A law enforcement officer shall be on the car as well.
10. The delivery of the electoral materials shall be made by one or more delivery groups with not less than two of its members (of LGEC), whereas the vote counting shall be made by the counting groups assigned by the Local Government
Electoral Commission (LGEC) , that can be up to 5 groups.
11. Chairman, deputy chairman and the secretary of the counting group are assigned according to the procedures and criteria set to LGEC-s (i.e. based on the proposals made by the respective political parties. These groups shall be set
up not later than 2 hours prior to the voting conclusion.
Review of the cases and decision making
12. Changes that are also done to the review procedures of the cases from CEC and the Electoral College of the Court of Appeal. These amendments aim to make this process more operational and transparent, which would increase the
confidence of the electoral subjects.
13. In all the low-level electoral commissions, decision making shall be four to three, whereas on some issues such as: announcement of the voting result for the multinominal lists for the Parliament, the decisions against the LGEC
and VCC decisions about the election result, as well as the requests fro the declaration of the election invalidity are adopted by CEC when not less than 5 CEC members vote pro.
Media Monitoring during the election campaign
14. Changes and materializations are done in the monitoring of the election campaign. To this end, CEC , 10 days prior to the launching of the electoral period, sets up the Media Monitoring Board. It submits every day reports on
the monitoring conclusion for the preceding day. CEC reviews the reports of the Media Monitoring Board not less than once a week. The Board is made up of 7 members. Each of the CEC members assigns a board member that shall have the profession or work experience as a journalist, annalist or media researcher. In order to conduct the monitoring, the Board makes use of the technical capacities
available form the National Council of Radio and Television.
Election Financing
15.For the first time in the Electoral Code, it is made mention in a detailed and complete of the election financing, of the non-public sources of the funding of the electoral campaign, of the delivery and redelivery of the fund for the financing of the electoral campaign and the statement of the expenditures of this
campaign. This solution seems as it is transparent and shall influence the prevention of the potential abuses. It is worth mentioning the fact that in the article 143 of the Code, it is stated that ‘The budget funds for the financing of the elections shall be made available from CEC 6 months prior to the term conclusion of the Parliament.’
The local Observers
16. According to the article 18, item 4 of the unchanged Electoral Code, the accreditation applications of the Albanian observers were submitted to CEC not later than 15 days prior to the lection day, whereas the changes made to the
aforementioned provision, they shall be submitted not earlier than 45 days prior to the election day.
17. This change restricts the monitoring scope, because the Albanian observers are allowed to watch only the electoral campaign, the voting process as well as the vote counting and not other election aspects such as for eg. the
proclamation of the preliminary voter lists, the implementation of the procedures fro their correction, the presentation of the candidates and their registration etc.
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