Home > 1.2 Equal suffrage > BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA- Joint Opinion on amendments to the Election Law
 
 
 
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Paragraph 9
 

The election systems for the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska provide for the election of some members in multi-member constituencies. Although Articles 9.11, 10.9, and 11.9 of the Election Law require a review of multi-member constituencies every four years to ensure that they are established “in a manner that complies with democratic principles”, the OSCE/ODIHR observed in the 2006 elections that there was significant variance in voting populations of multi-member constituencies.[8] Article 25(b) of the ICCPR provides that elections shall be conducted through the exercise of universal and equal suffrage. Equal suffrage means that the vote of each voter counts the same as other voters and has equal weight. Equal suffrage is not respected if the weight of a voter’s vote is diminished due to significant variance in constituency voting populations.