The vote verification process in South Mitrovica resumed around 16:30 following an order from the Prosecutor’s Office.
What happened?
Initially, the Prosecutor’s Office ordered the suspension of the ballot counting process for the South Mitrovica runoff election after reports of irregularities.
The Central Election Commission (CEC) of Kosovo later clarified that the issue stemmed from a technical error made by the Slovenian company CETIS, which printed the ballots.
The CEC explained that in some bundles of ballots for South Mitrovica and Gjakova, the polling station code was incorrectly printed.
Later on Tuesday, the CEC confirmed receiving an official clarification from CETIS regarding the identified errors.
According to CETIS, a full internal investigation revealed that the issue occurred in only one of the four printer heads responsible for printing the polling station number. The control system monitored only the serial number (QR code), which meant the error went undetected during printing.
“CETIS fully accepts responsibility for this technical error, emphasizing that the ballots contain multiple security features that make falsification or duplication impossible. The company deeply regrets the incident and remains fully available to the CEC to assist in verifying the ballots and clarifying the circumstances,” the company stated.
The CEC informed the State Prosecutor’s Office of CETIS’s official explanation.
