considering the complaint against the Republic Electoral Commission is submitted to the same body. In addition to all of the above, a process protecting the suffrage of submitters of candidate lists for similar reasons unfolded before the Administrative Court that ruled on the complaint made by the Russian party (a national minority political party). Namely, REC first rejected the motion to confer upon the Russian party the status of a national minority political party as the necessary majority of all REC members did not vote for adopting this decision, and then the REC rejected a complaint from the Russian party representative for the same reason - no members of the Republic Electoral Commission voted for its adoption90. This kind of decision-making, without providing the legal grounds to reject the complaint and/or without providing the factual situation that caused the legal grounds for the decision was contested by the Administrative Court that adopted the Russian party representative's complaint and reverted the REC decision91. REC again rejected the complaint in the repeated procedure, this time referring to its arguable competence to verify the position of the national minority political party in the electoral process, although the party was already registered in the Political Party Registry with such a position92. The Russian party as the submitter of the candidate list ‘Russian Party - Slobodan Nikolić’ was found to have the position of the national minority political party only after the Administrative Court ruling after the appeal to the decision in the repeated procedure93. Because of these issues reoccurring throughout multiple election cycles, it is necessary to clearly stipulate provisions that will facilitate efficient, fair, and effective protection of suffrage for submitters of candidate lists, particularly in terms of national minority political parties and coalitions participating in the elections. On the other hand, after election day ended REC faced an enormous number of complaints of irregularities in the work of the polling boards and other election activities as well, such as the delay in announcing the results, introducing electronic sessions, and announcing overall results before the expiration of the deadlines for administration of justice. Specifically, after gaining insight into a total of four bags with voting materials and claiming they exposed a systemic forgery of the polling board minutes, representatives of the Suverenisti (Sovereignists) list - CG Dosta je bilo – Saša Radulović - filed as many as 2,700 identical complaints against the irregularities in the work of the polling boards. Complainants claimed there were manipulations with voting materials and that there are discrepancies between the voting materials and the number of votes for this list against official the polling board minutes and hence requested the elections to be reverted in one third of the poll stations. In case of these 2,700 complaints the REC again merged all procedures into a single procedure Decision rejecting the complaint from the Russian party representative from 10 June 2020, available at: https://www.rik.parlament.gov.rs/tekst/2171/resenja-po-prigovorima.php 91 Verdict adopting the complaint from the Russian party representative, III-11 Už 95/20, as of 14 June 2020, available at: https://www.rik.parlament.gov.rs/tekst/2171/resenja-po-prigovorima.php 92 Please refer to the following source for a detailed explanation of the issue: Emilija Orestijević, „Osvrt na rad izbore administracije na parlamentarnim izborima 2016. godine i na predsedničkim izborima 2017“. godine, (Emilija Orestijević, Reflections on the operation of the electoral administration in the 2016 parliamentary elections and 2017 presidential elections) in: Around the elections #20 (2018), ed. Bojan Klačar, CeSID, Belgrade. Available at: http://www.cesid.rs/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Oko-izbora-20.pdf 93 Verdict adopting the appeal from the Russian party representative and reverting the Republic Electoral Commission decision, III-10 Už 107/20, as of 19 June 2020, available at: https://www.rik.parlament.gov.rs/tekst/2171/resenja-po-prigovorima.php 90 54

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