CEC: Recount of 185 polling stations found no serious violations, process will not be expanded

The Central Election Commission has announced that the recount of 185 regular polling stations did not produce findings that would justify including other polling stations in this process.

According to the CEC, this verification was carried out to check the accuracy of vote counting at the Municipal Counting Centers, and the result showed that the discrepancies found were small and do not constitute grounds for further expanding the recount.

CEC spokesperson Valmir Elezi told kp that the selected sample included polling stations from all municipalities of Kosovo. He explained that the findings mainly relate to the recategorization of ballots from invalid to valid, as well as human errors during the initial count.

Elezi: No basis was found that would require expanding the recount

“The Central Election Commission has recounted 185 out of a total of 2,498 regular polling stations, the ballots of which had previously been counted at the Municipal Counting Centers. The selected sample included polling stations from all municipalities, with the aim of verifying the accuracy of the counting process. The recount of 7.41% of regular polling stations did not identify findings that would justify the need for additional recounts. The discrepancies found were minimal and mainly related to the recategorization of ballots from invalid to valid, as well as human errors during the initial count. Consequently, no basis was found that would require expanding the recount process to other polling stations,” Elezi said.

He stressed that the changes observed in the votes of candidates for MP were almost negligible. In 92 percent of cases, he said, the difference amounted to only one vote for the candidate at the respective polling station, while cases with larger shifts were rare.

Elezi: 77 cases of a reduction of 2 votes were recorded

“After the recount, a comparison of the votes of candidates for MP shows that most differences are minimal. In 92% of cases, the difference was only 1 vote per candidate at that polling station. This means that if a candidate had 50 votes at a polling station in the first count, after the recount the result may have come out as 49 votes or 51 votes. Changes greater than one vote were rare: 118 cases with an increase of 2 votes; 16 cases with 3 votes; and only 2 cases with four more votes. Meanwhile, 77 cases of a reduction of 2 votes were recorded; 4 cases with a reduction of 3 votes; and 2 cases with a reduction of 4 votes,” Elezi said.

Corrections recorded for political entities were also minimal. Changes were recorded in 27 polling stations across 16 municipalities, where a total of 36 votes were added and 20 were removed, resulting in a net difference of only 16 votes.

Elezi: A total of 36 votes were added to political entities

“Likewise, after the recount of 185 polling stations, changes in the votes of political entities were identified in 27 polling stations in 16 municipalities. Overall, a total of 36 votes were added to political entities, while 20 votes were deducted. For example, one entity (A) may have had 100 votes in the initial count and after the recount may have had 102 votes (+2). Another entity (B) may have had 80 votes and dropped to 78 (-2), while another entity (C) may have had a small change, such as +1 or no change at all. This shows that the results of political entities before and after the recount are almost identical, with minimal corrections in some polling stations,” Elezi said.

During this process, according to Elezi, not only were the results verified, but other issues were also identified relating to the assessment of ballots, the checking of signatures on voter lists, and similarities in the way ballots were filled out. He said these cases were recorded by polling station and, at the moment they were identified at the NRC, the competent authorities were notified for further handling.

This picture differs from the one presented after the parliamentary elections of December 28 last year. At that time, verification of the count in several polling stations had raised serious suspicions of manipulation of votes for candidates for MP, which prompted the Central Election Commission to decide on a recount of all polling stations. On the order of the Prosecution, hundreds of people involved in the vote-counting process were arrested, representing various political entities.

However, just a few months later, in the June 7 elections of this year, the recount produced a completely different situation.

In the previous elections held on December 28, 2025, the CEC had decided to recount all polling stations after initial verifications and the partial recount of some of them found discrepancies in the counting of votes for candidates. According to the CEC, a review of video recordings from the Municipal Counting Centers and an examination of ballots in a sample of polling stations had shown that in some cases the votes recorded in the counting results did not match the votes marked on the ballots. To ensure the accuracy of the final result and the integrity of the electoral process, a decision was made to recount all 2,557 regular polling stations, and the process lasted nearly three weeks.