Zagreb - During a parliamentary debate on last year’s third-quarter voter register report, the opposition on Tuesday claimed there are nearly 400,000 more registered voters than adults listed in the census, arguing this undermines equal voting rights.
The ruling HDZ rejected the claim, saying the discrepancy stems from different methodologies and that everything complies with the Constitution and the law.
As of 30 September 2025, there were 3,609,130 registered voters across the ten constituencies -- slightly fewer than earlier in the year.
State Secretary Sanjin Rukavina said deviations between constituencies remain within the legally permitted ±5% margin and insisted this would remain the case until the 2028 general election.
Opposition MPs argued that disparities between the voter register and census figures -- around 12% -- call into question the legitimacy and equal value of votes.
They also criticised the lack of fully interconnected state databases (residency, deaths, tax records and emigration), calling it a matter of political will rather than technology.
State Secretary Rukavina dismissed claims of "ghost voters", stressing that the register is updated daily and overseen by the Interior Ministry. HDZ MPs accused the opposition of conflating the voter register with census data, while the SDP argued that changes to constituency boundaries in 2023 had actually increased disparities in vote value rather than reduced them.
HDZ MP Ivan Malenica reiterated that, in line with the Constitutional Court’s ruling, the law complies with the Constitution and guarantees equal voting rights.
"It is incorrect to say that all counties have been divided into multiple constituencies. The legislator accepted the Constitutional Court’s position by establishing an institutional mechanism for continuous monitoring of voter numbers in each constituency. The register is updated regularly, as it is based on the residence register, which is refreshed daily," Malenica said on behalf of the HDZ parliamentary group.
Veljko Kajtazi (MP for the ethnic minorities group) proposed that reports should also monitor and include data on the number of voters in the 12th constituency, where members of ethnic communities exercise their voting rights.