The deadline for inspection into the Voters Register for the upcoming Referendum on September 30 is expiring. And once again the same story. Disputed, phantom, deceased voters comfortably accommodated are waiting to give their contribution and to push away the living ones from choosing properly.
Because it’s about the name.
The State Election Commission, not at fault, at least it thinks it’s not, opened a list with 1.805.707 voters. And if you contact them to complain that you are not on the Voters Register, or to ask about the names and last names of the people figuring on your address who have never lived there, nor have you heard of before, they will quite “legitimately” reply that you need to contact the MOI.
When you will get things done in the MOI, depends on the system. And if the system says that the deceased persons are not deceased, that it’s you who actually doesn’t exist and that it’s your fault you haven’t met the phantoms, and not theirs, then on election day you are left with nothing else but to fight to exercise your voting right and to closely watch all day if some deceased persons or phantoms show up, so that you can nicely get acquainted.
The SEC is expecting changes in the Voters Register, but not drastic ones, so it’s not very concerned that someone at the end might make remarks to the SEC about the outcome of the Referendum.
Up until now, the SEC has leisurely accepted the flow of the election processes, and that is why the protection of the voter’s right was never the only problem.
The training of the Municipal Election Committees and the Election Boards was a problem, the spending of public money was a problem, the non-transparency and the complete absence of the members of the SEC in key moments was a problem, as well as their corruption. The very structure of the SEC was a problem, and nothing suggests that the changes in the composition of the SEC and in the Electoral Code will contribute anything to the interests of the citizens.
And instead of having citizens going to vote or not, in this case, at a Referendum, as if going to some kind of ceremony, they will be spending a Sunday afternoon in an ultimate attempt to prove that they exist, that they are not dead or invented.
For example, one citizen again has to go through the same process of losing her nerve and of persuasion, because the phantoms that were once deleted at a previous election process have once again returned to her address? How can a citizen convince them that his phantoms don’t have the need of additional phantom company, while his son figures on another address? And how is it that another citizen who hadn’t had any problems until now is now told by the system of the MOI: “You do not exist, it has nothing to do with the changes of the names of the streets, the valid ID card issued by us does not prove anything, you are simply not dead, nor alive, and there is no evidence that someone has stolen your identity…”.
Both the problem and the solution lie in the institutions. And it’s not only the MOI, and it’s not only the SEC…
Their recommendation remains for the citizens to do their job, and the citizens give up, angry and revolted from constantly fighting the same struggle, from which they always come out as losers. Because it’s in their interest for us to have a proper Voters Register and legitimate election processes. It seems that the citizens are the only ones in whose interest is to have this long-standing problem solved. And the state depends on the citizens, on their vote, of which it will depend whether they will fulfill the promise they have given – road to EU and NATO, by accepting the Agreement between Macedonia and Greece.
Then, in whose interest is for the enormous problem with the Voters Register to finally (not) be solved?
Biljana Jordanovska
