Bosnia votes for a three-seat presidency with paper ballots and biometric checks

Voters in Bosnia and Herzegovina went to the polls on Sunday to fill a three-member state presidency, 42 seats in the state House of Representatives, the assemblies of both entities, and cantonal assemblies in the Federation. The Central Election Commission has about 3.4 million names on the roll. That figure is widely treated as inflated by people who have left the country. New identification equipment is meant to produce a cleaner turnout number than in 2022.

The ballot is not a single presidential race. Federation voters choose either a Bosniak or a Croat member of the presidency. Voters in Republika Srpska choose the Serb member. The candidate with the most votes in each contest takes the seat for four years. The chair rotates every eight months. The presidency nominates the chair of the Council of Ministers, so the three names set the tone of the next government even though no bloc is expected to hold a clean majority afterwards.

Denis Bećirović of the Social Democratic Party is seeking another term as the Bosniak member. Bakir Izetbegović of the Party of Democratic Action, the largest Bosniak party, is running again after losing to Bećirović in 2022. Semir Efendić of the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Fahrudin Radončić of the Union for a Better Future are also on that list. For the Croat seat, Darijana Filipović of the Croatian Democratic Union stands against Slaven Kovačević of the Democratic Front and Zdenko Lučić, backed by a coalition of five Croat parties. Incumbent Željko Komšić is not running. In Republika Srpska, incumbent Željka Cvijanović of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats is seeking re-election. The entity also elects its own president and 83 assembly seats. The Federation elects 98 seats in its legislature.

The technical change is the part of Sunday that is new. Voters are identified on biometric devices. Ballot papers are scanned after they are marked. The scan does not replace the paper. The mark is still made by hand and kept on the sheet. The commission's case for the machines is faster checking and a harder path for a person who is not on the roll to cast a ballot. Critics of the roll have argued for years that dead and emigrated names inflate the denominator and make turnout look lower than the share of people who still live in the country. A scanned paper trail is the compromise the commission chose instead of a fully electronic vote.

The Dayton structure explains why the campaign has again run on constituent-people lines. The constitution written to end the 1992-95 war reserves the presidency for Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. People who do not identify with one of those three cannot stand for those seats. European courts have found that rule discriminatory. It is still the rule on Sunday's ballot. Federation voters cannot choose the Serb member. Republika Srpska voters cannot choose the Bosniak or Croat member. A party that wins a large share of one community can still be locked out of the chair for eight months at a time.

Coalition arithmetic starts the day after the count. State government requires agreement across entity and party lines. The presidency's nomination of a Council of Ministers chair can sit for months if the House of Representatives will not confirm the cabinet. In 2022 that process was slow. Nothing in the 2026 ballot design shortens it. Entity results will also decide who controls police and budgets in the Federation and in Republika Srpska, which is where most day-to-day authority sits.

More than 500 offices are on ballots of one kind or another, once cantonal seats are included. The number that will be quoted on Monday is the presidency. The number that decides whether a government can pass a budget is the state House, where 42 seats are filled by proportional lists. A party that wins a presidency seat and loses ground in the House has a title and less leverage.

Results will come in through the night. The scanners should speed the first unofficial picture. The legal result still rests on the paper. The open question is whether the biometric check cuts the gap between registered voters and ballots cast by enough to change how parties read their own strength on Monday morning.