The Electoral Room has been monitoring the electoral process through its members, the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections and the Albanian Institute for Political Studies, and shall continue to monitor the ballot counting process. It has cooperated with the citizens through the online portal ZALART.al to ensure a due electoral process.

The fact that hundreds of citizens all over Albania have responded to the appeal for reporting every violation they encounter to the zalart.al portal is good news and shows the citizens’ commitment to free and fair elections.

The voting process was generally conducted among a normal situation of public law and order. The performance of the State Police is considered to have been in compliance with the electoral law.

We also appreciate the very important role being played by the media through a minute-after-minute coverage of the electoral situation all over the country.

While limited when compared with previous elections, the public appearances of the political parties on the voting day have broken the electoral silence. In addition, there have been cases of candidates, Members of Parliament and other political representatives seen in the voting centers and in their vicinity in contradiction with the law. It was also observed that the Voting Centre Commissions have not taken any measures to make sure that there is no propaganda materials posted within a distance of 150 meters from the Voting Centers, as the law requires. Such cases were reported from several cities.

Due to delays in the distribution of the electoral materials and the absence of commissioners, the opening of the voting process was delayed in some Voting Centers, or was done without all the members of the commissions being present.

In some cases, it was also observed that people with disabilities were not always provided with the necessary facilities required by the law for enabling them to freely exercise their right to vote.

In several cases, the inadequate professional training of the Voting Centre Commissioners has allowed for some voters to photograph their ballot papers and post them on the social networks. Such a behavior creates room for vote buying and selling, and for a distortion of the voters’ will.

In some Voting Centers in Durres, Kavaja, and Vora, there were attempts to stop voters from voting even though their names were on the voter lists.

So far, the Albanian voters have calmly expressed their will on the ballot boxes. The Members of the Electoral Room urge for every ballot to be counted correctly and for voters’ voice to be heard by the parties in the process.

The founding members of the Electoral Room:

Urge for a good administration of the ballot papers and electoral materials.

Urge the political parties to demonstrate their will for their commissioners to implement the electoral law on the counting, validation, and calculation of the electoral results.

Urge the electoral administration, and particularly the counting teams, to strictly meet the law requirements.

Reiterate their position that every observed violation of the law should be investigated by the law enforcement agencies.

The Electoral Room shall, through the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections continue to monitor the counting process step by step in all the 90 counting centers.

The ZA’LART 2015 project will enable the civil monitoring of, and reporting on, the electoral process of 21^st of June. The program slogan is Make Elections Count and it aims at encouraging citizens to be critical and denounce problems that damage the elections! ZA’LART works as a web and app mobile, inviting citizens to monitor and report any problems and abuse they see in relation with the electoral process in real time. Reporting is easily applied within a few seconds, preserving the citizens’ anonymity. Every report or denouncement shall be crosschecked by the Ad-Hoc Editorial Team composed of local journalists and volunteers trained for fair elections and democratic culture.

We invite you to follow us and join reporting on ZA’LART 2015 platform through Web, App Mobile, FB: ZA’LART – Raised Voices Albania (community), Twitter ZA’LART@ZaLartAlbania; and You Tube.

The ZA’LART Team is open to cooperate with the institutions, civil organizations and networks operating on monitoring and electoral culture. Anyone interested in being updated about citizens’ reports made on this platform, may register on the Merr Sinjal (Receive Notification) section, selecting the area or the category of violations, in which he or she is interested. All citizens’ reports shall be published and available on the map of ZA’LART platform (70 reports made one week ahead of the campaign).

ZA’LART is also being conducted in the framework of the civil society initiative to coordinate fair elections 2015 – Election Situation Room. Everything is being done with the contribution of the citizens, moderated by the Albanian Institute of Science (AIS), with the financial support of the Open Society Foundation for Albania (OSFA) and the Democracy Commission Small Grants Program of the US Embassy in Tirana. Its opinions, findings, and recommendations are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent those of its Financial Supporters.

You may contact us at any time, and are welcome to actively join ZA’LART !

Thank you!

ZA’LART 2015 Team