In the midst of violent demonstrations by certain political parties of the opposition and on the day when supporters of Dragan Đilas set-up, as they say, a “blockade” of MDULS, the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government once again clearly and unequivocally points out that the Single Electoral Roll is one of the most up-to-date records in the Republic of Serbia and that it is more organized than ever before, as well as that the claims about the existence of the so-called “phantom voters” are absolutely false and arbitrary.
First of all, we would like to recall that until 2012, each municipality or city kept its own voter list, and that this had its drawbacks. With the consolidation of all the data and the establishment of Single Electoral Roll in 2012, the full control, accuracy and up-to-dateness of the data have been ensured.
We would like to emphasize that the Ministry has continuously worked on improving this database for the past eleven years, and that the results of that work are visible. Primarily, we would like to point out that since the establishment of the Single Electoral Roll in 2012, the records of residence, i.e. of residence of citizens, is linked to the Single Electoral Roll, which means that when a citizen changes their residence, that information is updated within 24 hours by the municipal/city administration of the Local Self-Government Unit in charge of the part of the voter list in the area of which the change was made.
Since 2019, we have performed the linking of Civil Records with the Single Electoral Roll, so that when a person dies, they are deleted from the Single Electoral Roll as soon as possible by the person authorized to update the Single Electoral Roll. The same procedure applies in the case of a change of surname, because that information is also immediately recorded in the Single Electoral Roll. Moreover, in 2019, the Manual for the implementation of the Law on the Single Electoral Roll was drafted for the needs of civil servants who perform these tasks, as an auxiliary tool in their daily work, and in 2020, the control of citizens’ registration for voting abroad was also established.
We would like to remind the public that we have created a special website with information for citizens, through which they can check whether they are entered into the Single Electoral Roll and at which polling station they can exercise their right to vote, and we have also enabled blind and partially sighted people to check electronically whether they are entered into the Single Electoral Roll.
From 2021, on the website of the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, the number of voters classified by Local Self-Government Units is published every three months until the closing of the Single Electoral Roll, and following the closure of the Single Electoral Roll, it is possible to view data on the names and surnames of all voters in the Republic of Serbia by polling stations.
In order to further improve the Single Electoral Roll, the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, in cooperation with the Office for Information Technologies and eGovernment, has established an electronic service on the eGovernment Portal – Request for registration, i.e. for change of data contained in the Single Electoral Roll. This service enables citizens, through the eGovernment Portal, to review the data about them which is contained in the Single Electoral Roll, to submit a request for entry or change of such data, as well as to have the relevant decision be delivered to their eInbox in electronic form. The service is provided free-of-charge, while each person may submit a request exclusively for itself.
The Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, Aleksandar Martinović, PhD, has pointed out that all of the aforementioned is very well known to Dragan Đilas, Miroslav Aleksić, Marinika Tepić and other leaders of the opposition coalition “Serbia Against Violence”; however, as advocates of foreign interests, they are not interested in these facts. Martinović added that their goal is to take power in Serbia by force, regardless of the freely expressed will of the people in the elections which were held on 17 December, and to completely change its internal and especially foreign policy, according to the dictates of certain international centers of power, that is, as the president of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, had nicely formulated, to make “a marionette” out of Serbia.
However, as the Minister has said, MDULS shall fully stand with the President of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, and be committed to his policy of Serbia as a sovereign and free country, which independently makes the most important political decisions and which undergoes strong economic development as a politically stable, democratic and legally regulated country.