Serb voters abroad face long trips in tight election after officials move polling stations

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — When Irina Djordjic registered in Canada to vote in an election this weekend in her native Serbia , she expected a repeat of the 2023 poll: a short drive to the consulate in Vancouver for a relaxed Sunday afternoon voting with fellow Serbs. She was wrong.

Djordjic, who holds dual Canadian-Serbian citizenship, was told that her polling station had moved to Toronto, 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles) away, and would open at 2 a.m. to match polls opening in the Serbian time zone, where it's 8 a.m.

The decision by the Serbian election authorities meant that she and hundreds of other Serbs in Vancouver would have to take a 4.5-hour flight and possibly line up in the middle of the night to vote. Thousands of Serb expatriates in the United States, Australia and New Zealand face the same problem. Some 100,000 people have registered to vote abroad this year, up from 39,000 in 2023.

Critics say it's a deliberate move to discourage voters abroad, who may be less supportive of populist strongman Aleksandar Vucic as he faces his biggest electoral challenge yet from a youth movement behind almost two years of protests against Vucic's tight rule in the Balkan country. Turnout in Serbia is expected to be high, which is believed to favor the students.

"Some people have small children, some can’t be absent for too long,” Djordic, a former journalist from Belgrade who now works as a fundraiser in Canada, told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

Serbia’s student movement grew out of mass anti-corruption protests sparked by a canopy collapse that killed 16 people at a renovated railway station in northern Serbia on Nov. 1, 2024. They blamed the disaster on government graft during renovation work.

Vucic’s SNS party and the student movement are running close ahead of the vote and tens of thousands of ballots from abroad could make a difference.

Borko Stefanovic, an opposition politician who is a former senior Foreign Ministry official, told the AP that the “regime did everything to prevent our citizens abroad from voting, out of fear of losing power.” He noted that “diplomatic and consular missions must be in the service of every citizen.”

Government officials rejected criticism. Foreign Minister Marko Djuric has said on X that the changes were guided “not only by the number of registered voters, but also by logistical, security, spatial, (and) staffing” criteria.

Serbia’s election commission has rejected all complaints. Its final list includes 93 polling stations aboard, 12 more than in 2023. Nine of the additional 12, however, are in Bosnia, a neighboring country slightly smaller than West Virginia, where ethnic Serbs have mostly supported Vucic and his party. Many have dual Serbian citizenship and the right to vote in Serbian elections. Authorities in Serb-run half of Bosnia, who are allied with Serbia's populists, have banned any activities in support of the students.

Realizing the global scale of the issue, Serbs around the world decided to try a more universal solution. Enter VoteBnB, a nonprofit website that connects people willing to offer spare rooms, car-sharing, or organized transport.

The website has offered 1,300 accommodation offers and more than 750 ride-share offers that have been matched with hundreds of requests from Serbs eager to reach polling stations in Europe, North America and Australia.

In Canada, Serbs from Vancouver “reached out to our friends in Toronto and arranged airport transfers, accommodation with other volunteers, whatever was needed," Djordjic said. "And it worked.”

It's a “large network of volunteers, one big community,” Djordic said.