Voters Outnumber Residents in Croatia

Croatia has more voters than residents, the official electoral role issued by the Administration Ministry showed five days before the December 4 general election.

The register contained the name of 4,504,081 voters. On the other hand, according to this year's census, Croatia has only 4,290,612 inhabitants.

There are 411,758 registered voters who live abroad, which means that in Croatia there should be 4,092,323 registered voters – half a million less than the register indicates.

The independent election watchdog GONG has warned several times that the size of the electoral roll shows the list has not been updated for years.

GONG said this omission could pose questions about the legality and legitimacy of the election process. GONG blamed the Ministry of Administration and Interior Ministry for failure to update the list.

Administration Minister Davorin Mlakar replied that the Interior Ministry was the body in charge of updating residency laws and lists. “But since it didn't [do so], we have to stick to the law which is in force,” Mlakar added.

GONG believes that many voters on the list are either dead or reside both in Croatia and neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it calls “intolerable”.

 During the last Croatian election in 2007, journalists proved that it was possible to vote twice in the same poll - once over the border in Bosnia, and then again in Croatia.