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On 14 October 2026, the President of the Constitutional Court, Vladan Petrov, announced that the Court had rejected the proposal to declare unconstitutional and unlawful the decision of the Republic Electoral Commission (REC) introducing voting booths at polling stations (case IUo-154/2026). The challenged act is the REC's Decision amending the Instructions on uniform standards for election material, adopted on 24 August. The ruling comes eleven days before the snap parliamentary election of 25 October. The Court's reasoning has not been published: according to the Court's announcement, it will be delivered to the participants in the proceedings once the final text is adopted.
Petrov stated that the REC's decision and instructions are in line with the Constitution and the law, that booths provide a higher level of secrecy of the vote in line with ODIHR recommendations and the Venice Commission's Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters, and that booth-type screens are used in Germany, France and Italy. He added that the Court did not, and could not, examine how the rules will be applied or possible abuses during voting.
The REC took the decision at its 12th session, held on 19 and 24 August 2026, before the election was called. Booths two metres high and closed with a curtain were introduced as an alternative to the existing cardboard screens, on the grounds that this implemented a 2024 ODIHR recommendation. The original proposal was to replace the screens entirely; under the amended version, voters choose between a booth and a screen. The decision was supported by 12 of the 17 REC members present. As CRTA's Election Observation Mission "]documented, the contract for around 30,000 booths, worth more than 830 million dinars, was concluded through a negotiated procedure without publication of a public call, under the urgent procedure, with an approval from the Public Procurement Office that gave no specific reasoning for the urgency. In September, the REC also amended the instruction on the layout of the polling station, so that in the one-way flow of voters the screens are placed before the booths.
The decision was contested both within the REC and outside it. REC members Tanasije Marinković and Sofija Mandić disputed both the grounds for the decision and the use of the urgent procedure, with Marinković arguing that the booths would not improve the secrecy of the vote and would encourage the photographing of ballots. Students and opposition parties raised the same concern: a curtain shields the voter from view, but it also makes it easier to photograph a marked ballot, which can then serve as proof of how a person voted where voters are pressured or paid. CRTA's mission noted that the decision opened questions about its legal basis in Article 52 of the Law on the Election of MPs and about the scope of the ODIHR recommendation it invokes.
Against this backdrop, the ruling settles one question and leaves the other open. The ruling settles the legality of the act, not whether the booths will protect the secrecy of the vote on election day. Petrov himself drew that line. Several of the 2024 ODIHR priority recommendations, including those on the misuse of public resources and the intimidation of voters, address precisely the practices that make a photographed ballot valuable. Whether the booths serve the stated goal will depend on how polling boards apply the new rules on 25 October and on what observers record there.
Petrov stated that the REC's decision and instructions are in line with the Constitution and the law, that booths provide a higher level of secrecy of the vote in line with ODIHR recommendations and the Venice Commission's Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters, and that booth-type screens are used in Germany, France and Italy. He added that the Court did not, and could not, examine how the rules will be applied or possible abuses during voting.
The REC took the decision at its 12th session, held on 19 and 24 August 2026, before the election was called. Booths two metres high and closed with a curtain were introduced as an alternative to the existing cardboard screens, on the grounds that this implemented a 2024 ODIHR recommendation. The original proposal was to replace the screens entirely; under the amended version, voters choose between a booth and a screen. The decision was supported by 12 of the 17 REC members present. As CRTA's Election Observation Mission "]documented, the contract for around 30,000 booths, worth more than 830 million dinars, was concluded through a negotiated procedure without publication of a public call, under the urgent procedure, with an approval from the Public Procurement Office that gave no specific reasoning for the urgency. In September, the REC also amended the instruction on the layout of the polling station, so that in the one-way flow of voters the screens are placed before the booths.
The decision was contested both within the REC and outside it. REC members Tanasije Marinković and Sofija Mandić disputed both the grounds for the decision and the use of the urgent procedure, with Marinković arguing that the booths would not improve the secrecy of the vote and would encourage the photographing of ballots. Students and opposition parties raised the same concern: a curtain shields the voter from view, but it also makes it easier to photograph a marked ballot, which can then serve as proof of how a person voted where voters are pressured or paid. CRTA's mission noted that the decision opened questions about its legal basis in Article 52 of the Law on the Election of MPs and about the scope of the ODIHR recommendation it invokes.
The ruling settles the legality of the act, not whether the booths will protect the secrecy of the vote on election day.
The concern rests on recorded practice. In the local elections in Zaječar on 8 June 2025, CRTA observers recorded the photographing of ballots behind the screen at 33 percent of polling stations, according to CRTA's final observation report. In the local elections of 29 March 2026 in ten municipalities, CRTA's mobile teams visited 360 of 415 polling stations, and at almost every one of them they recorded practices that included parallel records of who had voted, the mass photographing of ballots and their marking with prearranged symbols, and the organised transport of groups of voters, according to CRTA's election day report.Against this backdrop, the ruling settles one question and leaves the other open. The ruling settles the legality of the act, not whether the booths will protect the secrecy of the vote on election day. Petrov himself drew that line. Several of the 2024 ODIHR priority recommendations, including those on the misuse of public resources and the intimidation of voters, address precisely the practices that make a photographed ballot valuable. Whether the booths serve the stated goal will depend on how polling boards apply the new rules on 25 October and on what observers record there.
