Assistant Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Marina Dražić met with representatives of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to discuss the Single Voter Register and the Ministry’s activities to improve the aforementioned.
“The single voter register has never been more up-to-date. We have electronically connected the registers of deaths and marriages with the SVR, so that a registrar, after entering a fact of death and marriage in the registers sends, ex officio, the aforementioned electronically to clerks who are working on updating data in the SVR”, stated Marina Dražić.
As she added, a special page has been opened on the website of the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, where the Ministry publishes all information related to the SVR.
She reminded that citizens could check whether they were registered in the SVR through the page https://upit.birackispisak.gov.rs/ and on the portal of eAdministration, emphasizing that this was now possible for both blind and partially sighted people.
“In order to improve access to the election process, we have enabled all citizens to check data in the SVS, including the blind and visually impaired, through the use of a screen reader on the aforementioned web-site. The procedure is such that after entering one’s ID number, and before using the search option, a code from an image that includes audio instructions must be entered. “In the past, verification of the voter register was conducted in such a manner that someone always had to be next to a blind and partially sighted person and help him/her, while now they can do it themselves”, she noted.
She added that seven training courses were conducted for 368 clerks working with the Single Voter Register application, as well as two training courses for 279 registrars on linking registers with the Single Voter Register, in order to strengthen democratic capacities and improve the voter register, in particular in view of the accuracy and up-to-dateness of data.
The Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, as Dražić added, also published a Manual for the Implementation of the Law on the Single Voter Register, which is a significant tool in the work of officials authorized to keep or update the voter register.
The Manual presents, among other things, the procedure for updating the voter register from the announcement of elections to the conclusion of the voter register, with detailed explanations of the procedure for informing citizens on the manner of achieving insight into the voter register and exercising the right to vote at one’s place of residence in the country or abroad.
The Ministry has also prepared and published a video, which provides citizens with an explanation how to check data in the Single Voter Register.