The Election Panel for Complaints and Appeals (PZAP) has decided to recount 177 ballot boxes, containing 1,613 invalid ballots sent by voters from outside Kosovo to the Central Election Commission (CEC) postal boxes.
The PZAP’s decision came after an appeal was filed by the Vetëvendosje Movement following the decision by the CEC a few days ago, which had not approved the recount of these boxes.
“The CEC decision of March 6, 2025, is annulled, and the Central Election Commission, specifically the Counting and Results Center, is ordered, based on the recommendation of the CEC Secretariat of March 6, 2025, to open the 177 ballot boxes containing 1,613 invalid ballots sent by voters from outside Kosovo to the CEC postal boxes. These ballots should be re-evaluated, counted, and included in the final result,” reads the PZAP decision.
Furthermore, the documents in the case indicate that the CEC Secretariat, on March 6, 2025, recommended to the CEC to decide on the opening of all postal ballot boxes in order to re-evaluate and count all ballots that were declared invalid, in accordance with the PZAP decision.
It is worth recalling that during the meeting held on Thursday, the CEC did not approve the Secretariat’s proposal to recount these votes.
Besnik Buzhala stated that, based on the PZAP decision, the CEC Secretariat recommended to the CEC to decide on the opening of several postal ballot boxes for the purpose of evaluating the invalid ballots.
“This concerns 1,631 invalid ballots, which include a total of 177 voting places out of 187 in total. Of the 177 voting places containing invalid, empty, and unused ballots, 1-10 invalid ballots are from 117 voting places, 11-20 invalid ballots from 56 voting places, and 21-25 invalid ballots from 4 voting places. These 177 ballot boxes should be opened so that the invalid ballots can be evaluated based on the decision made by PZAP,” said Buzhala.
