The Democratic Party has officially submitted amendments to parliament that change the rules for voter identification in the voting process, MP Oerd Bylykbashi said on Thursday, A2 CNN writes.
According to these amendments, it will be possible for Albanians to vote in the May 11 elections with biometric documents from the countries where they live, not just Albanian state documents.
"This, not only with an impact for those who vote in Albania, but above all with an extraordinary impact on the effective, maximum expansion of the right to vote of those who vote from outside Albania. With this amendment, we make possible a rule change that is consistent with this extraordinary reform that has been made in the right to vote in Albania, in the expansion of this right to half of the Albanian electorate," he said in a press conference.
According to Bylykbashi, the population census figures have been manipulated and the number of Albanian citizens with the right to vote living abroad is much higher than reported.
"The Republic of Albania has in its civil status registers, that is, in the national civil status register, about 4 million and 700 thousand citizens from 0 to whatever age they live, so there are 4 million and 700 thousand Albanian citizens. Of these, officially at this moment there are 3.7 million citizens with the right to vote. So they are over 18 years old.
On May 11, 3.7 million citizens have the right to vote, so about 1 million are between the ages of 0 and 18 and do not vote.
So these 3 million and 700 thousand citizens are about 79% of Albanian citizens with the right to vote.
In the Republic of Albania, according to the census and official data declared annually by INSTAT for the last census, in our opinion, the data is manipulated and not true. This figure is 2.4 million, meaning Albanian citizens from 0 to 18 years old and over 18 years old, there are 2.4 million people living in Albania.
I reiterate, in our judgment, in our information, and the data that came out, you know that INSTAT prolonged the data publication phase for a long time and clearly to manipulate this data.
There are less than 2.4 million, but we must consider that this figure also includes foreigners living in Albania, because this is the purpose of the census.
So the number of those officially living outside Albania, according to these official data, is 2.3 million Albanians. This number could be higher, it could be around 2.7 million.
Based on the official figure, of these 2.3 million living outside Albania, we must bear in mind that the majority of the population there is of adult age, emigration mainly consists of people who are able to work, that is, over 18 years old, who have left Albania.
The ratio of those with the right to vote is greater than the overall average ratio, i.e. greater than 79%.
So in our judgment, if we were to base ourselves solely on the official figure of 79% of the 3.7 million Albanians living abroad, there are no less than 1.8 million Albanians with the right to vote living outside Albania.
Considering that there are many students, people who have gone for work, or that the real figure is higher, this figure should be close to 2 million Albanians with the right to vote outside Albania.
It is a failure of this state, of this government to have accurate data, or when it does have it, it manipulates it, but this is the reality. We are talking about more than half of Albanians who have the right to vote, to whom this reform that began in 2020 and was mostly perfected in 2024, gives the right to vote, said Bylykbashi.
"The main issue raised by the State Election Commission was the deadline for preparing this process for a large number of voters who were expected. It is being verified every day that there is a relatively high interest from the Diaspora to register. If the alarm raised by the State Election Commissioner at the end of October regarding the insufficiency of time to effectively prepare the ballot for citizens abroad and their return within the legal deadline, which is voting day, is not justified," said Ivi Kaso.
"The opposition has shared the same concern about this issue. It has also shared the same concern to intervene in the Electoral Code to address the issue of payment, which fortunately was taken over by the state. It must be remembered and taken into account that this process is not a separate voting process, it is not a separate election organized for the Diaspora, abroad, but it is a part of that process that must be administered according to the same rules.
If there are dozens of problems related to diaspora voting, their main problem is the validity of citizens' documents. For those who have them and they have expired, for those who have never been provided with an Albanian document and for those who, for one reason or another, do not have an Albanian document but have a document from a foreign country.
These are exactly what we have included in this amendment, which we have presented to the Assembly. We aim and estimate that there should be the same legal value and the same opportunity for those who have not only a valid identity card in the Republic of Albania, but also for those citizens whose identity cards have expired and those who do not have an Albanian biometric document. There is no legal reason why this should not be implemented in the electoral process, but also to create equality of treatment among voters. Our aim has been to make this right equal and effective. (A2 Televizion)
A2 CNN Livestream
MUND TE LEXONI GJITHASHTU
