CRTA: 38.2 pct voters in Serbia cast ballot by 5pm; report on 'Bulgarian Train'

N1

CRTA NGO reported that by 5 pm, 38.2 percent of the eligible voters cast their ballots in Serbia’s general elections, and reported a case of 'Bulgarian Train' in the north of the country, N1 reported on Sunday.

Center for Free Elections and Democracy, CeSID, earlier said that the turnout was 26.5 percent by 2 pm, or five percent less than in the last general elections in 2016.

Earlier, CRTA reported to the police a case of the so-called ‘Bulgarian Train’ during the elections in the northern town of Zrenjanin. The Interior Ministry said its officials did not see unknown people at the polling station and denied another report of the ‘Bulgarian Train’ in the eastern town of Pozarevac.

‘Bulgarian train’ is a method of vote-buying that includes a recurrent process of casting pre-filled ballots during which the voters who are willing to sell their ballots take them into the polling stations, where they obtain empty ones and cast their pre-filled.

That method has been reported by independent observers during several previous elections in Serbia, but the authorities have always denied it.