The new electoral law requires transparent ballot boxes with a slot that allows the insertion of only a single ballot paper per voter. The boxes used last year in municipal elections and earlier had a wider slot allowing several ballot papers folded together, and which could not be seen. But on 12 September, the National Electoral Commission (CNE) decided to use last year's ballot boxes from the October 2023 local elections process during this year's 9 October general elections. This is in violation of the law and will encourage ballot box stuffing.
The CNE justifies the decision by citing budgetary limitations, the tight timeframe which makes public tender procedures impossible, and the fact that the CNE has just ordered an extra 14,775 old style ballot boxes to add to the 64,106 from the previous electoral process.
CIP in a special report says the CNE Resolution as illegal and calls for the intervention of both the Constitutional Council (CC) and the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP) to force the CNE to comply with the law. https://www.cipmoz.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/CNE-viola-Lei-Eleitoral.pdf
