Montenegro doesn’t possess an updated and correct electoral roll ahead of the presidential election scheduled for 19 March, suggests the analysis of Pobjeda daily, published partly based on the data of the Centre for Monitoring and Centre for Democratic Transition.
On 17 January, according to data of the Ministry of Interior, Montenegro’s electoral roll had 543.175 voters, which is by over 3.000 voters more than in the 2020 parliamentary election, when it had 540.026. Having in mind that the population is 618.000, it looks like the number of voters compared to the population is even 88%.
This massive imbalance between the number of voters and population indicates that the electoral roll is neither correct nor updated. The European standard for this ration is 70%.
It particularly refers to the electoral roll in Montenegro following 2006 (when it renewed its independence), when the increase of voters compared to the population having right to vote rose by nearly 13%.
This imbalance is a proof that voters have duplicated records, i.e. that they are being registered in the electoral roll of Montenegro as well as the electoral roll of some of the countries of the region – primarily Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In its latest report, the European Commission stated that no progress had been achieved in terms of election reform, suggesting that voters with duplicated records were an issue.
