The Central Election Commission (CEC) announced the completion of activities at the Municipal Counting Centers for Kosovo’s local elections held on October 12. Meanwhile, for the third consecutive day, the Counting and Results Center continues to process postal votes.

The last municipalities to finish counting and verifying results late on Saturday were Prishtina, Prizren, Gjilan, and Malisheva.

On October 19, the CEC reported that officials verified results from 2,571 regular polling stations for mayoral elections and the same number for municipal assembly elections.

CEC officials confirmed, “From these 2,571 polling stations, we counted the votes for municipal assembly candidates. In total, the Counting and Results Center processed 5,142 ballot boxes covering both types of elections.”

Officials continue to count and verify votes from abroad. By 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, staff had counted 54 ballot boxes for mayoral elections and 45 for municipal assemblies.

Kosovans living abroad voted by mail from September 17 to October 11. The CEC received 33,841 packages of ballots, and after verification, 29,636 were approved. Counting of these ballots began on October 17.

After completing the postal vote count, officials will count conditional votes and votes from people with special needs. Then, the CEC will announce the results of the first round of local elections.

The second round is scheduled for November 9. According to preliminary results, 21 municipalities elected mayors in the first round, while 17 municipalities will hold runoff elections.

On election day, 39.58% of more than two million eligible voters inside Kosovo cast their votes./REL/