According to non-anonymous reports to Gong, the election morning went by peacefully with few reports about irregularities.
The majority of reports were related to violations of election silence on social media, where specific political parties and candidates are posting paid ads (Živi zid, HSP). Additionally, SMS and messages on social media (SDP, IDS, Narodna stranka-reformisti) and even phone calls (Bandić Milan 365-Stranka rada i solidarnosti) were sent out. Alongside with violations of electoral silence, voters see this as pressure towards them.
Gong received notification of a case about the polling station committee in the Croatian Embassy in Denmark, where voters were asked about their nationality by the polling station committee. Gong warns that voters’ nationality does not play a role in the elections for the European Parliament because there is no minority representation.
Reports about the media violating election silence were not present in the morning, probably because of the fines in amounts of 100 000 to 500 000 kunas, which the Central Electoral Commission announced would be consistently applied to the traditional media, leaving the social media as a ‘grey area’ of political advertising in Croatia.
On Election day Gong provides informational support to the voters by accepting non-anonymous reports about irregularities and answering inquiries by:
Application for reporting irregularities: https://prijava.gong.hr/,
e-mail : gong@gong.hr,
telephone: (01) 4825 444,
State Election Committee is responsible for the organisation and conduct of elections, which all election participants can address by telephone: (01) 4569-712 and (01) 4569-713 and e-mail dip@izbori.hr. Monitoring of ethical principles is conducted by Etičko povjerenstvo for the Members of European Parliament, which is available by telephone: (01) 4569-673 and e-mail eticko.povjerenstvo@sabor.hr. Regarding the GDPR questions, voters can contact Croatian Personal Data Protection Agency (AZOP) which they can contact by e-mail: azop@azop.hr. Complaints about unlawful electronical communication (SMS for example) can be sent to Hrvatska reulatorna agencija za mrežne djelatnosti (HAKOM) by e-mail nezeljeni.sms@hakom.hr.
