In an official letter addressed to the country’s major political forces, the CEC announced that it is considering the expansion of electoral technology applications to a specific number of local government units.

According to the CEC, “To ensure a timely, sustainable, and logistically sound implementation, the Central Election Commission views expanding the system to three or four major municipalities as a balanced and practical next step.”

Therefore, the CEC requires that any decision regarding the expansion of the process should be based on a clear and consolidated position from the political parties. The CEC has asked political parties to state their positions regarding the possibility of implementing electronic voting and counting in several major municipalities ahead of the 2027 electoral process.

As part of these consultations, the political parties have also been invited to designate representatives to attend a consultative meeting at the CEC, scheduled for October 9 at 11:30 AM. /m.q/a.f/r.e/p.s./

Speaking to reporters, Celibashi said that, “Today, we will verify the aspects of the functionality of this device, both in the case of use by voters and in the case of transmitting the information that these devices will have on the day of voting and that will be transmitted to the data center in the CEC”.

“From a formal point of view, we are fulfilling an obligation of the Electoral Code to test the functionality of the technology. Today, we have electronic voting and counting devices, and tomorrow there will be tested functionality of the electronic identification devices”, he said.

Celibashi also took the opportunity to express guarantee of the equipment regarding the secrecy of the vote.

“There is no possibility or mechanism for someone to verify the vote cast by a voter for certain subjects,” he said.

Regarding the question that there were complaints from citizens in Elbasan about pressure from political forces regarding the possibility of identifying the vote to guarantee the vote in favor, Celibashi said that, “We had some such concerns that have been addressed to the CEC regarding the security and guarantee of the secrecy of the vote”.

“But, I’m here to reconfirm for the umpteenth time as the right person to do this, to say that the guarantee is 100% complete.” Anyone who says otherwise is simply a political speculator and seeks to gain political advantage with this issue,” said Celibashi.

Regarding the announcement of the result in the municipalities with electronic voting, Celibashi stated that it is intended that the preliminary result in these three cities will be announced within 30 minutes from the moment the voting process closes.

“We aim to have the preliminary results within 30 minutes from the moment the voting process closes. This is a pilot project with unknown things even for us who apply this project from a technical point of view. From what we estimate, we believe that all procedures will require a time of no more than 30 minutes from the moment the voting process closes”, said Celibashi./p.s./

State Election Commissioner Ilirjan Celibashi was today in Lundër where the CEC conducted the operational testing of the electronic voter identification equipment that will be used in the by-elections for mayor, on March 6, 2022.

Speaking to reporters, Celibashi said that voting by electronic means is 100% safe.

He stressed that, for the municipality of Vora, the result, at least the preliminary one, will be announced immediately after the elections.

“We are fulfilling an obligation of the Electoral Code, although I will personally have to say that it was unnecessary to do it because we use the same machine in this election and we will use the same machine in 4 other election editions. However, as long as it is provided by the Electoral Code that before each voting process, the CEC will have to do this operation, we are conducting it. I think that the very positive experience of the CEC in application of electronic identification, is a good basis to think that in these elections the problems will be almost zero “, said Celibashi.

Regarding the announcement of the result, Celibashi said that, “Different from the elections on April 25, we are targeting to announce the result as soon as the voting closes. At least the preliminary result ”./ j.p / r.e /p.s./