The State Election Commissioner, Ilirjan Celibashi, talked to media representatives regarding the progress of the preparation of the election process of May 11, 2025, in terms of the voting process of out of the country and within the country.

Information provided to the public:

• Composition of the Zonal Election Administration Commissions (ZECs)

Political parties that will propose CEAZ members:

1. SP, as the main party of the parliamentary majority, proposes 2 members;
2. SDP, as the second main party of the parliamentary majority, proposes 1 (one) member;
3. Democratic Party (DPSH), as the main party of the parliamentary opposition, proposes 2 members;
4.  FP, as the second main party of the parliamentary opposition, proposes 1 (one) member.

Seventh member of CEAZs:  

1. SP will propose the seventh member in CEAZ ranked with an even number;  
2. DP will propose the seventh member in CEAZ ranked with an odd number; 

Political parties have been contacted to submit proposals for members of the CEAZs and so far no political party has submitted their proposals. The CEAZs will be constituted on February 11, 2025.

The process of train- the trainers, who will train second and third level administration, operators of electronic identification devices and operators of electronic voting devices has been completed.

Meanwhile, regarding out-of- country voters, the Commissioner stated that some data has been added to the data dashboard in order for the PER data to be more clearly understood by the public and to not confuse the number of requests and rejections with the number of voters who have submitted their request or have been rejected.

PER data at 11:00 hrs:

• 116,190 voters have applied for registration

• 140,796 is the number of applications, which means that some of the above voters have submitted more than one application  to register.
• For 86,570 voters, the request to be included in non resident voters list was approved ( these are actually the citizens who will be included in the voters’ list).
• For 25,401 voters, the request to be included in non- resident voters’ list was rejected
• 49,959 is the number of rejected applications- this also includes cases where a voter’s application was rejected more than once.
• 3,400 is the average number of voters approved per day.
• The average number of daily applications has increased from 4,800 to 5,800 applications per day.
• The day with the highest number of applications was February 2, with 9,774 applications per day. Sunday is generally the day of the week with the highest number of applications.
• The day with the lowest number of applications was January 14th, with 3,588 applications. Tuesday is generally the day of the week with the lowest number of applications.
• The countries with the greatest number of applications are Italy 37%, Greece 27% and Germany 11.9% of the total voters.
• The countries with the highest number of approvals are Italy 33.4%, Greece 25% and Germany, 12.6% of the total voters whose applications were approved.
• The countries with the highest number of rejections are Italy 46.1%, Greece 26.9% and Germany, with 11.5% of the total voters who applied

SEC ensures that PER Platform has no way of interaction with third parties outside the CEC.  For this reason, all political parties are provided with the access to the process and the platform, in order to supervise the entire process.

Celibashi highlighted that the process of submission of request in the PER platform is a process that must be done individually by the voter. There is nothing wrong if political parties encourage citizens to register or invite them to meetings to inform them, but in no case can they apply on behalf of the voters. The request must be submitted individually by each voter. Political parties must show maximum care and have a legal responsibility to protect personal data that may be obtained from this process even if accidentally obtained.

 The Commissioner added that the CEC has requested the Albanian Parliament to approve as soon as possible the budget for the political parties that will run in the election campaign.

In addition, Commissioner Celibashi underlined that the CEC will send a technical proposal to Parliament on the issue of complaints by voters  in case of non-inclusion in the list of voters from abroad, so that they can complain through an online platform.

March 4th is the deadline of application process to  register as voters from abroad. On March 9th, we will have the list of voters from abroad. On March 24, the process of submitting multi-member lists of candidates for MPs ends and the CEC will immediately begin preparing the electoral documentation that will be sent to voters residing outside the territory of the Republic of Albania. Therefore, the Commissioner added, if the changes to the Electoral Code are made after March, they will be of no use  to the Central Election Commission.

To the reporters’ questions about electronic voting, Celibashi stated that it will not be implemented in any region, but in compliance with the provisions arising from the Electoral Code, it will be implemented as a pilot project in one or two administrative units.

Regarding the ballot paper, Commissioner Celibashi underlined that a draft decision with the technical specifications of the ballot, is ready to pass to the Regulatory Commission.

CEC is working on the ballot specimen, while consultations are being held with political parties regarding the content of the ballot.