The Central Election Commission (CEC) in Albania is set to report 67 members of ballot counting groups to prosecutors over suspicions of vote rigging during the April 2021 general elections.
Prosecutors will decide whether to press charges against them, head of CEC Ilirjan Celibashi told journalists on Friday, as the CEC cannot launch investigations on its own.
The numbers of votes for candidates and parties did not correlate in a number of voting centers, thus raising suspicions of wrongdoing for the CEC.
Each voting center has a team of four vote counters. In problematic voting centers, prosecutors are expected to investigate whether all members or some of them were responsible for manipulating the ballots cast.
In addition, CEC reported 20 cases of multiple voting in two voting centers.
The Albanian opposition has called the April 25 an “electoral massacre”, and has blamed the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama for massive rigging of elections. However, all their claims were refuted by a special CEC panel for lack of evidence.
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