Balkan Insight has uncovered evidence that a 123-year-old woman and a 120-year-old man voted in both rounds of November’s local elections in Kosovo, raising concerns of possible electoral abuse in the country’s outdated electoral roll.
The two individuals who, if alive, would be the world’s oldest and second-oldest people, cast votes in both rounds of Kosovo’s local elections in November 2009 according to records, raising suspicion among officials close to the election process.
Almost 900 people over the age of 100 remain on the voters’ list, with 23 of them recorded as having been born in the 1800s, research carried out by Balkan Insight shows.
The questionable registrations come despite a major push to update the electoral roll in the run-up to the elections being carried out by the Central Election Commission, CEC, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Xhemajl Pecani, the head of the CEC, told Balkan Insight that his organisation was aware of the problem, but would not be pushing for criminal investigations into people who may have fraudulently voted on behalf of the centenarians.
He said: "We are aware of dead people being on the voters’ list but, as the country has had continuous elections up until recent months, not much has been done until now."
He added that the OSCE and IFES, International Foundation for Electoral Services, "will now help the CEC with the voters’ registry".
Ismet Kryeziu, the head of Democracy in Action, a coalition of 11 non-governmental organisations, NGOs, which had more than 2,000 monitors in polling stations in November, said that inaccuracies in the electoral roll were open to abuse.
He explained: "The presence of those names is due to the non-registration of deceased people and also as a result of a lack of effort to encourage people to report deaths.
"In our tradition, people hesitate to go the competent authorities to announce the death of their family members."
He said a long-awaited census may help to improve the accuracy of the list.
But Majlinda Lulaj, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Public Administration, said that Kosovo’s census, which should be held in 2011 for the first time in decades, will not be used to update the list.
But Majlinda Lulaj, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Public Administration, said that Kosovo’s census, which should be held in 2011 for the first time in decades, will not be used to update the list.
Blerim Camaj, the head of the agency for civilian status in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said the ministry was working to improve the accuracy of next year’s planned general elections.
He said the Ministry was working on creating a digital database of all civilian records which will be ready by the end of this year and will ensure that all relevant documents lodged at the municipal level will be included in the electoral roll.
The Law for Civilian Registry was approved by the Government last week and has been sent to Kosovo’s Assembly to be reviewed, he added.
The law will make the registration of births and deaths a legal obligation
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