Around 600 activists of the nongovernmental election-monitoring organisation GONG will be monitoring Sunday's elections for the seventh Croatian parliament in the country and abroad, GONG said on Friday.
In the evening on Sunday, GONG will publish the results of a parallel vote count at 443 out of 6,572 polling stations which serves to verify the official election results.
On Saturday and Sunday, GONG activists will monitor voting at polling stations abroad, to be organised on December 3 and 4 due to time differences. On those two days, 19 GONG observers will monitor voting in Bosnia and Herzegovina, three observers will monitor voting in Serbia, two in the Netherlands, and one each in Switzerland, Germany and Canada.
On Sunday, 60 observers in mobile teams will be visiting polling stations in Croatia, while other monitors will be stationed at 443 polling stations chosen on the basis of a statistical sample according to the Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) methodology.
Unlike exit polls, which forecast the election result on the basis of interviews with voters, the PVT methodology is used to collect official voting results at a polling station, and its main purpose is to verify the official results.
GONG says that the PVT method is a strong and reliable mechanism for checking official election results and detecting election fraud.
During a PVT, well trained observers watch the voting and counting processes at specifically selected polling stations – based on a statistical sample – and record key information on standardised forms and report their findings (including polling station's turnout and vote count) to evaluate the overall quality of election-day processes and to project, or verify, official election results based on precise analysis of polling station data.
The votes counted by using the PVT methodology are calculated to show how many parliamentary seats they carry.
GONG will publish PVT results between 2130 and 2300 hours.
GONG recalled that it had applied this methodology successfully five times since 2000. In the 2007 parliamentary election, results obtained with the PVT methodology gave the most precise prediction of the final election results.
Based on monitors' reports and reports by non-anonymous citizens, GONG will issue statements on the voting process around 1430 and 2000 hours on Saturday, and around 1100, 1430 and 1830 hours as well as between 2130 and 2300 hours on Sunday.
