PODES sounds the alarm over ‘epic theft’: some 3,800 voters in Niš registered at the nonexistent address ‘0’

The four city municipalities of Niš — Palilula, Pantelej, Crveni Krst and Niška Banja — have a total of 3,785 voters registered on the voter lists at the nonexistent house number ‘0’, as the Serbian newspaper Danas reports. The figures were made public by the leaders of the citizens’ group ‘Dr Dragan Milić’ and the Movement for the Decentralisation of Serbia (PODES).

In Niška Banja alone, the smallest municipality with 11,545 voters, 632 voters were found registered at ‘0’ addresses — 5.5% of the electorate. According to Danas, double house numbers were also discovered in Palilula: ‘0’s had been added in front of the real numbers (1, 2, 3, 4), producing 01, 02, 03, 04, which do not actually exist.

Dr Dragan Milić said the problem does not end there: around 5% of voters are also registered at addresses that exist but where they do not live, while another 5–6% are employees of municipal public enterprises and social assistance beneficiaries, blackmailed through their jobs or benefits. ‘The criminal authorities, on the principle of 5% + 5% + 5%, steal 15–20% of the voters,’ he said, adding that the elections had been delayed for so long so that ‘a theft of 700,000–800,000 votes’ could be secured at the level of Serbia as a whole.

Milić assessed that the example of Niš makes it clear that ‘the SNS’s criminal authorities are preparing an epic theft in the upcoming parliamentary elections.’ He called for mass turnout on 25 October, calling that day a ‘referendum’, with a vote for the Student List.

As Danas recalls, an earlier analysis by Radio Free Europe (RSE) had found more than 500,000 voters across Serbia registered without a street name and house number — the notation ‘bb’ is translated numerically as ‘0’. The SNS denies the manipulation allegations.