Systematic Efforts not to Allow Serbian Diaspora to Vote in Serbian Elections
The Serbian nation is considered to have a sizable Diaspora. The number of expatriate Serbs around the globe is estimated at around 3.5 million - about a third of the nation - primarily located in North America, Germany, Austria, Australia and New Zealand. The period after WW II also saw subsequent waves of emigration, first sparked by political motives, and later shifting more to socio-economic grounds. The latter eventually affected the intellectual elite as well, resulting in an increasing and serious "brain drain" over the past two decades. Since the October 2000 democratic changes in Serbia and Montenegro, the Serbian Diaspora hoped for a better relationship with the Homeland, and for joint work on further development of democratic civil society and crucial economic reforms in order to speed up the painful transitional period.
As one of two representatives of the Serbian Diaspora from USA in the Diaspora Council that was established by President Kostunica in 2002, and as a Vice-President of that Council, I worked very hard in promoting the rights of Serbs abroad to citizenship, voting rights, denationalization, and rehabilitation of wrongly accused, and participation in the economic, social, cultural and moral renewal of the Serbian nation. The Council proposed many ways how the Serbian Diaspora could effectively contribute to the rebuilding of the Serbian nation with their knowledge, experience, and worldwide connections.
After more then 10 years, very little of what was promised to the Serbian Diaspora was fulfilled. Although the Serbian government admitted that without ongoing financial help from the Diaspora, entire regions of Serbia would have been reduced to poverty, and that in 2011 at least 5.5 billion of dollars was obtained from Diaspora, still the Serbian Diaspora investors have been treated as second-class investors. Experts from the Serbian Diaspora (engineers, scientists, professors, businessmen,..) have not been welcomed in Serbia, and even the most basic right of the citizens of one country, the right to vote, has been denied to the Serbian Diaspora.
In 2002, the Diaspora Council proposed that the Serbian citizens abroad could vote either in Serbian embassies and consulates, or by mail ballot or by electronic voting. Only the first option was accepted, which created tremendous problems for the majority of Serbian Diaspora due to a very limiting number of voting locations, large distances that the voter needed to travel (sometimes, thousands of kilometers), and a very complicated process off registration to vote.
I will only present several examples from my own experience with voting. The Western USA including California where I live, are under the jurisdiction of the Consulate General of Republic of Serbia in Chicago. One of the two voting location for the Serbian elections in 2007 was open there. I went through the lengthy registration process, and flew to Chicago to vote. However, nobody was able to vote, because the voting lists from Chicago jurisdiction were sent to Washington Embassy and, from Washington jurisdiction to Chicago. In 2008, me and several colleagues were able to collect enough registered voters, and the voting location was opened in the Silicone Valley, where at least several hundred young Serbian engineers live and work. All of us had to again go through the lengthy registration procedure. However, the lists of registered voters were again not accurate, so that the large percentage of those who registered to vote were not on the lists.
In the most recent elections that were held on May 5-6, 2012, basically nobody from California was able to vote. Information about the elections and the procedure how to register was sent very late, in my case only one day before the registration deadline. For the third time we had to go through the lengthy registration procedure. In addition, it was not specified that the deadline was midnight of April 14 (but Belgrade time), so that California voters deadline for registration was shortened by 9 hours. Many of those registered on April 14 were denied registration for being late. However, the same people were already registered to vote in 2008! Until 2 to 3 days before the election date (May 5), nobody informed the voters in California if and where they could vote. Only then, a small percentage of registered voters received information that they need to travel to Chicago to vote. It was already late for people to find any reasonably priced tickets to fly to Chicago. Additional complication was that traveling and personal documents for Serbian citizens were changed several times over the last 10 years. The last change – the biometric documents – required people to travel to Chicago to get the new documents, which many were not able to do.
For the 2012 elections, the number of voting location for the Serbian Diaspora was reduced by more than 2 (no voting locations for Australia, and only 3 or 4 for Northern America), and the procedure was twice as complicated. The end result is that less than 1000 Serbian citizens around the world were able to cast their ballots. All of the above could have been prevented if mail ballot or electronic voting was allowed. After more that 10 years of advocating simplified ways of voting for the Serbian Diaspora, I must say that somebody obviously does not want to allow it.
Prof. Jasmina Vujic, California, USA, May 10, 2012
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