Repeat vote at 53 polling stations: where, how many voters and what comes next

The Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) decided on 28 October that the vote for members of parliament held on 25 October will be repeated at 53 polling stations. They are open on Sunday, 1 November, from 07:00 to 20:00. RIK has finished processing the other 8,339 stations, so these 53 are all that is missing for the final results.

This article was written during voting, while the election silence is in force. It ends when polling stations close at 20:00. That is why it names no lists and contains no estimates of the result.

How many voters

24,438 voters are eligible, and RIK printed the same number of ballots. That is 0.38% of the 6,451,292 registered voters in Serbia. We checked the figure ourselves: the registered voters at these stations in RIK's data add up to exactly 24,438.

Votes cast at these stations on 25 October do not count towards the result, so everyone registered there may vote, including those who voted that day.

Aleksinac has the most voters (3,104), followed by Zemun (3,039) and Bačka Topola (2,032). The largest polling station is no. 81 in Novi Pazar, with 1,838 voters, and the smallest is no. 24 in Dučevac near Babušnica, with 37. By region: Southern and Eastern Serbia 9,101, Šumadija and Western Serbia 6,240, Vojvodina 6,058 and Belgrade 3,039.

Why the vote is being repeated

Article 117 of the Law on the Election of Members of Parliament says voting is repeated if the results at a polling station cannot be determined or if voting there was annulled. Both cases apply here:

• 31 stations (9,294 voters): the results could not be determined.
• 22 stations (15,144 voters): voting was annulled.

The competent electoral commissions issued those decisions, and RIK then ordered the repeat vote. The reasons differ from station to station and are public for only some of them:

• Bačka Topola: at station 19, the actual number of invalid ballots did not match the record, and the sum of votes by list differed from the number of ballots in the box. At station 34 in Svetićevo and station 44 in Stara Moravica, the box held more ballots than voters who turned out. At station 40 in Stara Moravica, a person not listed in the voter extract was allowed to vote, and a ballot from a voter of another polling station was found in the box (Insajder).
• Zemun, station 1: the number of voters who signed did not match the number of ballots (Insajder).
• Hajdukovo near Subotica, station 73: no member of the polling board signed the record (Insajder).
• Inđija, station 20: no one signed the record here either, and at least three signatures were needed (Srpske novine).
• Kula, station 14: the record did not have enough signatures from board members (RTV).
• Novi Pazar, station 81: the city electoral commission annulled the vote after a control slip went missing (Kurir).

Where voting takes place

All 53 stations, by municipality and city. The number after each place is the polling station number, and the number in brackets is the number of voters. Stations in italics are those where voting was annulled, and the others are those where results could not be determined.

• Aleksinac (8 stations, 3,104 voters): Loznac 3 (131), Trnjane 13 (910), Prćilovica 16 (1,050), Stublina 24 (120), Porodin 42 (62), Deligrad 46 (101), Jasenje 47 (108), Glogovica 74 (622)
• Babušnica (3 stations, 246 voters): Dučevac 24 (37), Bava 26 (117), Radoševac 36 (92)
• Bačka Topola (4 stations, 2,032 voters): Bačka Topola, "Nikola Tesla" primary school 19 (617), Svetićevo 34 (118), Stara Moravica 40 (700), Stara Moravica 44 (597)
• Bojnik: Stubla 10 (478)
• Ćuprija (2 stations, 776 voters): Mijatovac 16 (197), Virine 21 (579)
• Inđija: "Petar Kočić" primary school 20 (1,277)
• Kanjiža: Horgoš, "Karas Karolina" primary school 4 (500)
• Koceljeva (5 stations, 847 voters): Bresnica 4 (111), Draginje 10 (232), Družetić 14 (145), Mali Bošnjak 26 (183), Subotica 32 (176)
• Kruševac: Veliko Golovode 111 (611)
• Kula: "Nepker" Hungarian Cultural Centre 14 (849)
• Kuršumlija (2 stations, 921 voters): "Drinka Pavlović" primary school 13 (699), Žuč 30 (222)
• Ljig: "Hiljadu trista kaplara" secondary school 20 (412)
• Loznica: Lešnica, "Petar Tasić" primary school 32 (1,593)
• Majdanpek (5 stations, 1,187 voters): Klokočevac 28 (155), Topolnica 29 (406), Topolnica 30 (257), Golubinje 34 (70), Miroč 35 (299)
• Novi Pazar: Ruđera Boškovića street, by "Ukras" 81 (1,838)
• Petrovac na Mlavi: Orljevo 27 (330)
• Pirot: "Sveti Sava" primary school 33 (1,207)
• Požarevac: Beranje 3 (449)
• Prokuplje: House of Culture 12 (391)
• Šid: "Sava Šumanović" grammar school 35 (1,108)
• Subotica: Hajdukovo, "Petefi Šandor" primary school 73 (292)
• Trstenik: Mala Sugubina 66 (163)
• Vladičin Han (7 stations, 788 voters): Kunovo 17 (282), Dekutince 27 (85), Bogoševo 35 (67), Dupljane 39 (55), Urvič 40 (117), Kukavica 46 (53), Belanovce 47 (129)
• Zemun, Belgrade (2 stations, 3,039 voters): "Svetozar Miletić" primary school 1 (1,364), "Rade Končar" primary school 25 (1,675)

Who runs the vote and who watches it

At all of these stations, voting is run by a new polling board appointed by the local electoral commission. A list that had no member on the extended board on 25 October may now propose one (Article 118). In parliamentary elections a board member does not have to come from that municipality, said Ivan Šebek of RIK. Observers may replace their representatives or register new ones (Article 168).

CRTA said its observers attended the opening of every station and will stay to the end, through the vote count and the publication of the records.

What to expect

For a sense of scale, three calculations from RIK's figures:

• The order of the lists cannot change. The gap between the top two lists is 623,223 votes, 25 times the number of voters at these stations.
• The threshold outcome cannot change either. The list closest to the 3% threshold is more than 38,000 votes short, and these stations have 24,438 voters.
• An individual seat can change. Seats are calculated only from the final figures, and the last seats are currently worth about 16,700 votes. If turnout matches 25 October, about 69%, these stations will produce about 17,000 votes, roughly what one of the 250 seats is worth.

Deadlines for the final results

1. Sunday, until 20:00: voting. Polling boards then count the votes on site and fill in the records.
2. By Thursday, 5 November: local electoral commissions have 96 hours from the close of polls to adopt their summary reports (Article 119).
3. By Monday, 9 November: RIK has 96 hours from receiving all summary reports to publish the overall report with the number of seats (Article 121).
4. After publication: the new parliament must hold its first session within 30 days of the final results, and the 90-day deadline for electing a government runs from the constitution of parliament (Mondo).

These dates apply if no one files an objection. Legal remedies move the deadlines, because they then run from the last decision, and objections to the summary and overall reports can be filed within 72 hours. RIK has not yet announced a date for the final results, and Šebek says the repeat vote should not significantly delay them.

Not the first time

Repeat votes are not rare. After the 2020 elections, voting was repeated at 234 polling stations, and after the December 2023 elections at 43 stations.

When RIK publishes the figures from these stations, we will update the Results page.

Voter numbers and processing status: RIK data as of 1 November at 10:40. The scale calculations are ours and are not official.