Bosch: Vote recount not in line with European practices (Koha)
The paper reports on the front page that the push by some members of the Central Election Commission (CEC) to institute automatic vote recounts at the Counting and Results Center supersedes the competencies of the independent CEC and raises questions about its management of the elections. Election experts and the Dutch ambassador to Kosovo, Robert Bosch, expressed concern, as representatives of political parties in the CEC were expected to vote on the initiative today. In an interview for the paper, Bosch said, “the idea to recount all votes even when there is no apparent reason for this, goes against election practices and will only add confusion to the process. Based on my experience from different election processes, I can say that this has not been the practice in any other country in the world”. Bosch also said that the recount of vote would undermine the role of municipal election commissioners who count and summarize election results in their jurisdictions. “Many observers are involved in this and they will follow the process up close, therefore it is important to give election mechanisms the chance to do their work in the best way possible. Votes should be recounted only if it is concluded that there were irregularities during the vote count,” Bosch added.