SABOR ADOPTS CHANGES TO RULE BOOK ON ELECTRONIC VOTE

ZAGREB, May 28 (Hina) - The majority of deputies in the Croatian parliament on Wednesday adopted changes to the parliament's Rule Book regulating the electronic voting system. They also endorsed amendments by the parliament's Committee on the Constitution binding the parliament presidency to adopt a decision regulating how MPs who want to have their identification keys for electronic voting kept in parliament will take them over and keep them. #L# Explaining the amendment, the committee's chairman, Mato Arlovic, said that MPs who cannot or do not want to keep their identification keys with them would be able to keep them in parliament. This was decided after the committee adopted a proposal by Jadranka Kosor of the Croatian Democratic Union that parliament remove from its Rule Book articles under which MPs would take over their identification keys from the competent parliament service before a vote and return them afterwards. The majority of MPs also adopted the committee's amendment under which parliament can allow, at whips' request, that MPs vote by raising their hands, as they used to do before the introduction of electronic voting. The parliament also endorsed a proposal by the Social Liberals that its presidency order, within three months, from the supplier of the electronic voting equipment a special display showing how each MP voted. Most deputies adopted a conclusion suggesting that the government pass a decision on the participation of Croatian military observers in the U.N. peace mission in India and Pakistan. According to an earlier proposal, the decision was to be passed by parliament, but since its adoption requires the votes of two thirds or 101 MPs, who have failed to convene in that number for two weeks, it was decided that the decision be adopted by the government. (hina) rml