Elections in Pandemi Proposed Raised Number of Polling Centres

And for maintaining citizens' health during election organisation, the Central Election Commission can take on practices from countries with developed democracies which have organised elections in the pandemic, says Albert Krasniqi, programme manager in Democracy Plus.

He says the extraordinary elections in Podujevo, though with few minor problems, may be a lesson for the CEC.

Krasniqi cites some practices that can be implemented so that public health will be maintained on election day, such as increasing polling stations, extending schedules, but also extending the time of voting more than a day.

The “should be given consideration for public gatherings of election campaign activities that I believe will be able to better navigate are online and media activities, but avoid public gatherings”, Krasniqi says.

To increase the number of polling stations, that is, to distribute voters not to concentrate on a polling centre, to extend the time of voting, to extend the period, so that there can be no voting just one day, but one day it can be done for two or three days, and one day to vote on people older, not to mix with young people who may have the virus, but without symptoms, he has declared.

He says that the locations should be broader and have a distance.

“Trying to make it wider to have distance, to avoid contacting material. There are good practices that have been used which the CEC was most adopted in organising elections”, Krasniqi has said of Online Economy.

Kosovo goes to extraordinary elections after the Constitutional Court ruling, which MP Etem Arifi's vote sentenced to prison for the Hoti Government has described as illegal.

Kosovo is the only country to hold elections in time of pandemic, as the two countries of the region, northern Macedonia and Montenegro have done so.

The US had also organised presidential elections in the pandemic during 2020.