ZAGREB, October 18, 2018 – Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Thursday that all interested parties would be allowed access to referendum signatures that had been found invalid.
“Two initiatives, one with two questions and the other with one question, have handed in signatures and they have been examined in detail. IT agency APIS and the commission in charge performed a triage to see what was in line with the law and what wasn’t. The Public Administration Ministry will allow everyone, not just representatives of these initiatives, but all interested parties, including the media, to see the signatures that have been found invalid and everyone will be able to see for themselves what is true,” Plenković told reporters in Brussels.
He added that statistics showed that between 9 and 11 percent of signatures had been found invalid in previous referendum initiatives as well.
The two civil initiatives, The People Decide and The Truth about the Istanbul Convention, gathered signatures for a referendum to amend electoral legislation and a referendum to revoke the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, known as the Istanbul Convention.
A verification of the signatures gathered has found some names crossed out, duplicate signatures, non-existing or invalid personal identification numbers, as well as signatures of minors, deceased persons or persons who are not Croatian citizens.
