Did the state-owned company APIS IT falsely count votes in the 2024 parliamentary elections in Croatia? No, that's not true: The State Electoral Commission, the Constitutional Court, and the accused company all rejected the claims, stating they were "unfounded and false."
The claim originated from a TikTok video (archived here) published by politician Karolina Vidović Krišto on April 16, 2024, under the title (translated from Croatian to English by Lead Stories staff) "⚠️ THE INTENTION THAT THE STATE COMPANY APIS AT THE ORDER OF PLENKOVIĆ INTENDS TO FALSELY COUNT VOTES MUST BE INVESTIGATED URGENTLY ⚠️." It opened (as translated):
Croatian citizens also see who they are dealing with on the basis of this. So as it is known, whoever lies, also steals. This kind of hiding the truth is unprecedented. The reason for this press conference is that I sent a request to the president of the State Election Commission and the president of the Supreme Court, Radovan Dobronić, to immediately, that is, momentarily, verify the allegations of a family member of a person employed by the state company APIS, who informed me in a credible and well-argued manner about the fraud that is intended to be committed by the president of the APIS board, Saša Bilić, and by order of the Prime Minister, Andrej Plenković. Namely, at the behest of Plenković, Saša Bilić, together with his closest collaborators, will apply an algorithm by which votes for the political party OIP will be attributed to other political parties. So, this is the most serious form of criminal offense against Croatian citizens, because the aforementioned action will deprive Croatian citizens of their freedom to choose their representatives. This information is highly credible considering the events of the past campaign.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed May 1 08:55:38 2024 UTC)
Karolina Vidović Krišto is a Croatian politician and the president of the political party Odlučnost i pravda (which translates to English as Determination and Justice, archived here). Karolina Vidović Krišto posted the TikTok video on April 16, 2024, one day before the parliamentary elections, the day of electoral silence. In Croatia, according to the National Election Commission (archived here), "on the day of the election, and until the closing of the polls, as well as 24 hours before the day of the election, any election promotion, publication of estimates of election results, and publication of previous, unofficial election results, publication of photographs in the media, statements, and interviews of list holders or candidates, and listing their statements or written works" is strictly forbidden. So, Karolina Vidović Krišto broke the electoral silence by posting the TikTok video.
The accused company, APIS IT, is a state-owned company responsible for digitally processing election data. According to their official web page, their "Elections" information system (archived here) monitors the electoral process from the announcement of candidacy and polling stations to the announcement of voting results and monitoring the financing of election campaigning.
The President of the Management Board of APIS, Saša Bilić, sent a letter to the company's employees (archived here) following the accusations. In it, he explained why it is impossible to manipulate the counting of the votes in elections. He stated that votes are not counted by APIS IT, but by polling committees at each station. He emphasized that the d'Hont method, a mathematical formula to allocate seats based on the calculated votes, is prescribed by law. He also added that political representatives in each electoral committee have the right to their own copies of the minutes, which can be easily compared with the election results by polling station and are available on the SEC website.
In an April 24, 2024 email to Lead Stories, spokeswoman of APIS IT Juliana Štrbić explained why the accusations made by Vidović Krišto are false (as translated):
The way polling committees work, their composition, the supervision of the competent electoral commissions, the possibility of observing all phases of the electoral process and the publication of all results by individual polling station exclude the possibility of any manipulation, so we believe that the claims of the Determination and Justice party - above all - reflect ignorance of the electoral process, which is explained in detail in the Decision of the State Election Commission. It is clear from the explanation of the SEC that the determination of the number of votes is not within the competence of APIS IT. The role of APIS IT is limited to the application solution that ensures the entry of voting results from the polling station determined by the members of the polling committees. At the same time, data from each record of the work of the polling committee is entered into the system twice by two different operators under the supervision of the competent election committee. Additionally, the election results for each polling station are available after the election on the website of the State Election Commission, which makes the system transparent and secure.
Lead Stories also reached out to the State Election Commission regarding the allegations. In an April 26, 2024 email to Lead Stories, Albina Rosandić, the secretary of the Commission, referred us to the State Election Commission's Decision. It was issued on April 21, 2024, and it rejects the complaint made by Karolina Vidović Krišto because it was unfounded. In the Decision, it is specifically pointed out that (as translated):
Determining the number of votes is not within the competence of the company which is in charge of implementing IT processes in the implementation of the election, as stated by the applicant in the complaint. The competence of the said company includes, among other things, the process that enables processing by election committees determined and the voting results entered by two different operators.
The SEC assessed that the allegations from the complaint are "blanket, not supported with any evidence, and that the accusations are the complainant's subjective opinion on the correctness of the actions of the election committees."
Following the Decision from the SEC, the political party OIP made a complaint to the Constitutional Court against the State Election Commission. However, the Constitutional Court rejected the complaint in a Decision issued on April 24, 2024 (archived here), stating that (as translated):
The appeal is not founded.
