The implementation of the State Register of Voters has led to considerable improvement of electoral list. This is the main conclusion of a comparative analysis of voters’ lists for the General Local Elections from 2011 and 2015, released on 24 May 2016, in the context of CEC preparations for the forthcoming presidential elections this year. This analysis was conducted with the support of UNDP Moldova within the Project “Improving the quality of democracy in Moldova through parliamentary and electoral support”, funded by the Governments of Sweden and Norway. According to the experts, at the last 2015 local elections, the number of people registered in supplementary voters’ lists was under two percent in the absolute majority of the localities, due to the use of the State Register of Voters by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC).

Based on the Law 101 from 2008, the purpose of SAISE was to create an IT-based system and allow the CEC to automate the process of collecting data about electoral candidates, of the preparation of ballot papers, of monitoring on real time of the voting process on the Election Day and most importantly - of blocking of any attempts at multiple voting.

The State Register of Voters is one of the modules included in the State Automated Information System – Elections (SAISE). The Register was developed in 2014, under the same UNDP project, with the scope to compile correctly the voters’ lists and eliminate duplication in the voters’ names.

Hence, according to the study, in 91% of the localities the number of persons included in supplementary voters’ lists is below 2%. Also, omission and duplication of data – which occurred frequently in the past – were close to total elimination.

After the introduction of State Register of Voters, in some localities the number of voters registered in supplementary lists dropped by 10 times, as compared to 2011. To date, all voters who have no voting restrictions are being automatically included in the lists of voters of their respective polling station according to their officially registered residence. The analysis showed that while in 2011 General Local Elections there were 56 localities with over 4% of voters registered in the supplementary lists, in 2015 General Local Elections the number of such localities dropped to 20. One of remaining problem in these 20 localities is the attribution of voters to specific polling stations on the basis of their official home residence.

“The development of the State Automated Information System – Elections is a continuous effort, which CEC and UNDP will keep advocating for to further enhance the transparency and inclusiveness of the electoral process in Moldova. It is also important to realize that the quality of voter registration and the quality of the compiled basic voters’ lists are not only depending on the design and continuous development of the system, but also on the quality and coordination of data gathered outside of the information system and the CEC responsibility”, says Narine Sahakyan, UNDP Moldova Deputy Resident Representative.

Currently, the UNDP project “Improving the quality of democracy in Moldova through parliamentary and electoral support” assists the CEC in launching the State Register of Voters’ data exchange process through the Government Interoperability Platform MConnect, in congruence with other state electronic registers, such as those of the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Ministry of Defense. Also, the project assists in developing new legal and regulatory framework for data exchange and interoperability, in line with the EU legislation and the best international practices.