Representative democracy program includes CDT projects and activities related to the election processes and aims to improve the electoral system and achieve democratic standards of transparency, representation, pluralism, accountability and citizen participation.
Since its establishment in 2000, CDT has conducted nine campaigns of civic election monitoring in Montenegro:
- Federal election in 2000
- Parliamentary election in 2001
- Local elections in 2001
- Parliamentary elections in 2002
- Presidential elections 2002/2003
- Referendum on State-Legal Status in 2006
- Parliamentary and local elections in 2006
- Presidential elections in 2008, and
- Parliamentary and local elections in 2009
We have also observed a number of extraordinary local elections and mayoral elections.
Our methodology of monitoring of the election processes consists of three phases: monitoring of a pre-election process, monitoring procedures of voting and vote counting during the Election Day, and monitoring of post-election events and the official declaration of the election results.
Once the election day is called, CDT begins with monitoring of national and municipal election commissions, including the control of the respect for the law, especially the timing of performing certain electoral activities. In 2001, carried out such an initiative with the relevant political parties on its own.
CDT conducts monitoring of voting and vote counting procedures with the support of a well developed network of trained volunteers. Since 2000, more than 5 000 citizens observed elections on behalf of our organization. Since 2001, CDT has been using the method of Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) for the projection of voter turnout and final election results. Using this method, based on a representative sample, in a very short period of time after the closure of polling stations, we announce accurate projections of results, with an insignificant statistical divergence compared to the official results. In 2006, CDT was the first organization in the world to use a system based on SMS technology for collecting and processing data during election. The program enables our observers to send the information about the turnout and results only in a few minutes after the closure of polling stations and ensures all-day SMS communication between the CDT headquarters and all the observers throughout Montenegro.
Based on the results of CDT’s monitoring and comparative analysis, during ten years of its work, CDT has continually informed the public about the shortcomings of the electoral legislation and made recommendations and referred to democratic standards and comparative solutions, whose implementation would lead to the improvements in this area.
CDT civic election monitoring projects was supported by USAID, National Democratic Institute (NDI), National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD), Embassy of the Netherlands and T-Mobile Montenegro.