The head of the Central Election Commission (CEC), Ilirjan Celibashi, told the media that so far 735 votes from the diaspora have arrived at the Olympic Park.

He stated that the process has so far been in accordance with the prescribed protocol.

“The process is going very well, in full compliance with the protocol we have set for receiving electoral documentation arriving in the Republic of Albania. So far, 735 envelopes—or more precisely, votes—have arrived. We just recorded the first two: one was from Berat District and came from Germany, the second was from Dibër and came from France.”

Asked whether there had been any damage, Celibashi said that in the two envelopes opened so far, everything has been in order.

Celibashi also explained how these ballots will be administered:

“We open the DHL envelope. Inside it, we find Envelope B, which contains Envelope A, and inside Envelope A is the ballot. All Envelope Bs are sorted by district and placed in the respective ballot boxes for each electoral district. Once the voting process ends on May 11, Envelope B will be taken out of the boxes. From Envelope B, we extract Envelope A. All Envelope As will be collected into a separate box to ensure the voter’s identity is not traceable. Then, the counting process will begin. At the moment counting starts for votes within the Tirana District, the counting of diaspora votes will also begin,” Celibashi explained.