2009-2011, two different CEC

The Socialist Party asked the Electoral College to declare as illegal the procedures undertaken by CEC for reassessing miscast ballots. CEC announced the result for Tirana Municipality only after reassessed this votes; a decision taken with only four votes from the Democratic Party commissioners who own the majority. Meanwhile, the three minority CEC members, from the Socialist Party, asked CEC to announce the result for Tirana based on the summary tables of the Zonal Election Commissions. The minority claimed that CEC was surpassing procedures that belonged to the phase of appeals. The majority, on the other hand, argued that CEC was acting as a super Zonal Election Commission.

Two years ago, in the parliamentary elections of 2009, CEC had a similar case: the result for the Fier district. When announces the final result for the parliamentary elections in this district, CEC acts in the same way it acts for Tirana municipality in local elections. Fier district has 7 ZECs. In 2009, five of these ZECs, without any reason, had left out of the summary tables the results of nine voting centers. When this matter was discussed at CEC, the Democratic Party majority of the time declared that although the decision of the ZEC was unjust, CEC could not do anything for resolving this problem, due to article 123 of the Electoral Code.

Contacted by Top-Channel, Democratic Party representatives who were present at this meeting argued that the difference between Tirana and Fier stands on the fact that in Fier all ballots were counted. While in Tirana, miscast ballots were not counted for the result.

The Electoral College will decide if this argument of the Democratic Party stands, or if it will be as the Socialist Party has asked, that the miscast ballots should have been assessed during the process of appeal.

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