On the eve of the May 11, 2025 parliamentary elections, a new scandal has cast serious doubt on the credibility of the electoral process for Albanian citizens living abroad. A female Albanian citizen residing in Italy publicly denounced that she received her election envelope from the Central Election Commission (CEC), but, unacceptably, the ballot paper was missing. In a video published by the JOQ Albania portal, she displays the accompanying documents inside the envelope – but not the one item that would allow her to exercise her most fundamental democratic right: the vote.
At first glance, this might seem like an isolated incident, but it has been followed by a wave of similar complaints on social media from citizens reporting that their election envelopes also lacked the ballot paper, or were improperly delivered – left in mailboxes, on doorsteps, or with neighbours, often without any form of identification check.
The growing number of complains prompted the Socialist Party (SP) to file a formal complaint with the Central Election Commission. The SP highlighted numerous procedural violations and logistical failures during the distribution of voting materials for the diaspora, particularly in Italy and Greece, According to the complaint, the international courier company DHL failed to comply with the agreed protocols – raging from ballots missing in envelopes, to requiring voters to pay for returning their votes, to uneven delivery even within the same household. Voters also reported communication difficulties with DHL, including unresponsive contacts and unnotified deliveries, leading to envelopes being returned without the voter`s knowledge.
In response to these concerns, CEC chair Ilirjan Celibashi stated that the number of problematic cases was “ no more than 100,“ and he denied knowing whether the missing ballots were due to any error on the past of the Commission. However, in a process where every single vote carries weight, even one disenfranchised voter should raise alarms. In a democracy, the right to vote is not a privilege – it is a cornerstone.
The issue has further escalated as the Electronic and Postal Communications Authority (AKEP) formally requested a copy of the contract between the CEC and DHL. AKEP, as the regulatory body responsible for overseeing postal services in Albania, cited growing citizen complaints and expressed concern over the lack of transparency. As the contract has not been made public. AKEP requested access in order to investigate whether the legal obligations under the contract has been violated.
Beyond the bureaucratic and technical aspects lies as far deeper issue: trust. Albanian citizens in the diaspora, many of whom left their homeland in search or opportunity and dignity, are eager to remain connected to their country and to have a say in its future. But repeated failures to ensure their full and fair participation in elections send a stark message – that their voice matters less, that their vote is more vulnerable to being lost, mishandled, or ignored.
This scandal rises a number of fundamental questions:
- How can such basic errors still occur in 2025, despite years of promises about enabling safe and inclusive diaspora voting?
- Who is ultimately responsible for safeguarding the vote abroad – the CEC, the courier, or the contracting institutions?
- Why hasn`t the contract with DHL been made transparent to the public?
In a functional democracy, procedures are not mere technicalities – they are the very mechanisms that safeguard legitimacy. The missing ballots, the procedural ambiguities, and the lack of instituional accountability do more than just cast shadows over the process; they corrode public confidence in the system itself.
The diaspora cannot continue to be treated as a symbolic electorate. Their votes, their voices, and their democratic rights must be protected with the same seriousness as those within national borders. Transparency, accountability, and an immediate instituional response are essential – not just for the sake of one women in Italy who opened her envelope to find nothing, but for le legitimacy of the entire election.
When a vote is denied, so is democracy. And when that denial becomes systematic, it`s not just ballots that are missing – it`s the very trust that binds citizens to the democratic promises of their nation.
Written by our correspondent A.T.
