4.1.2.5. Criminal law safeguards of electoral rights General rules Due to the particular personal and societal significance of political rights and freedoms, criminal offences against electoral rights form part of a separate Chapter (XV) of the Criminal Code.56 These are: → violation of the right to stand for elected office (preventing or hindering a person from standing for elected office); → violation of the right to vote (unlawful registration or prevention of registration in the Electoral Register or deletion from the Register; preventing or hindering a perseon from voting; coercing a person into voting or not voting); → giving and accepting bribes in conRECtion with voting (offering, giving, or promising a reward, gift, or other benefit to induce a person to vote or not vote in favour or against a person or proposition; demanding or accepting a benefit or gift with the same objective); → abuse of the right to vote (voting instead of a person under the name of that person; voting more than once in the same election; using more than one ballot paper in the same election); → compiling inaccurate electoral registers; → violating ballot secrecy; → ballot and election fraud (adding or removing ballot papers or votes during counting; altering the number of ballot papers or votes; publishing false election results); and → destruction of voting documentation (destruction, confiscation, or concealment of ballot papers or other voting documentation). The Criminal Code envisages both fines and terms of imprisonment for these offences, which are deemed to be aggravated when perpetrated by a member of a polling bord or any other person in the discharge of their duties in conRECtion with voting. Issues and recommendations for amendments to the Criminal Code Practice to date has shown that regulations in this area ought to be improved by legislating new criminal offences against electoral rights, broadening the scope of applicability of existing offences, introducing stricter penalties, and legislating aggravated forms of certain offences already envisaged by Serbian criminal law. Criminal Code, Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, Nos. 85/2005, 88/2005 – Corrigendum, 107/2005 – Corrigendum, 72/2009, 111/2009, 121/2012, 104/2013, 108/2014, 94/2016, and 35/2019. 56 35