Belgrade, 14 October 2026, dtt-net.com – Serbia’s Students List have initiated a legal battle over the organization of overseas voting for Serbia's nationals, filing lawsuits before the Administrative Court in capital Belgrade over October 25 early parliamentary elections. “Students List-Students Win” which is running hoping to topple regime of former President Aleksandar Vucic and his Progressive Party (SNS) is accusing the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) and ministries of deliberate obstruction, arguing that newly enforced rules will effectively strip thousands of expatriate citizens of their constitutional right to vote.
The legal dispute is about two major flashpoints: bizarre voting hours forced upon voters in distant time zones and the arbitrary allocation of polling stations across different countries.
According to students’ movement, RIK abandoned past precedents by failing to synchronize voting times with local realities. Consequently, Serbian citizens living in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand would be forced to cast their ballots in the middle of the night-specifically between 1:00 AM and 6:00 AM local time.
“We believe that the law requires voters to be provided with continuous voting for a duration of 13 hours, under normal and humane conditions,” they said in a press release, criticizing the midnight voting directive emphasizing the fundamental unfairness of the policy in their official brief.
Beyond the nocturnal voting hours, the lawsuits target stark geographical discrepancies in voting infrastructure. “Studenti pobeđuju” points to a severe imbalance between locations like Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Despite Germany housing a higher volume of registered Serbian voters, authorities have designated only eight polling stations there, compared to 28 stations allocated to Bosnia and Herzegovina-some operating in villages with fewer than 120 registered voters.
Furthermore, the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government (MDULS) faces accusations of freezing the processing of valid registrations submitted before the October 3 deadline, creating artificial bottlenecks.
Student says they intend to independently verify if Serbian diplomats ever genuinely requested permission to open additional polling stations outside embassies and consulates. As the Administrative Court reviews the filings, the student representatives maintain that they will not accept bureaucratic excuses and vow that the diaspora will not be silenced.
