State institutions are taking precautions to avoid votes being stolen during elections.
Thousands of police, 100 prosecutors, and 7 judges will be working on election day to protect the votes of citizens.
The court system is coordinating with other institutions during the election. “We have selected 7 custodian judges for the elections,” said Enver Peci, head of the Kosovo Judicial Council.
Lawyer Dastid Pallaska said that the court has been doing a good job, but the biggest problem is taking action toward the groups that organize to steal votes.
Seladin Nikqi, an ex-commissioner sentenced to jail for misuse of votes, refused to tell names of suspected people; he denies that there was crimes at all.
He said he was sentenced for the manipulation of 425 votes but he denies to have done these.
Flutura Kusari from BIRN pointed out that the parties whom the commissioners broke the law to help deserted the commissioners at the first sign of trouble.
She further added that commissioners are solely responsible for their crimes and so should be very careful in following the law.
Former commissioner Nikqi told all commissioners to be careful in their work to check where and what they sign onto during the election process.
“There is a trend of election crime improving in sophistication,” said Kusari. “That’s why the prosecution and the police should be careful and use also hidden measurements of investigation.”
On December 9, 2013, Justice in Kosovo reported that citizens in Partesh were confirming the suspicion that money was offered to them in exchange for their vote.
The police arrested people in Partesh only one day after the program Justice in Kosovo was broadcasted.
A similar case was tried in the city of Gjilan. Mejdi Selmani, observer of PDK, tried to convince the Serbian community to vote for PDK’s candidate. As a result, he was sentenced to eight months in prison.