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Bosnia and Herzegovina votes · Part 07 of 07

The fine print

The numbers under the results: ballots that did not count, votes that came by post, votes for lists that won nothing. Then the method, and the data behind every part.

Preliminary 202695.5% of polling stations counted, as of October 05, 2026, 07:00 am. Votes by post and absentee ballots are not in yet, and seats are allocated only once the count is certified, so seat charts still compare 2018 and 2022.

The answer

In 2026, between 4.4% (Presidency) and 9.2% (RS Assembly) of ballots did not count, and in 2022 16.6% of valid Federation State House votes went to lists that won no seat.

Spoilt ballots

How many ballots did not count

Same voters, same day: the share of ballots that did not count, race by race.

  1. Presidency4.4% 6.7% in 2022
  2. RS president4.8% 5.8% in 2022
  3. RS Assembly9.2% 5.5% in 2022
  4. FBiH House8.5% 7.6% in 2022
  5. State House8.7% 8.4% in 2022

Source: Central Election Commission of BiH · final results

Votes by post

Whose votes came by post

The share of each list’s State House votes that came by post, mostly from voters registered abroad. Lists with at least 20,000 votes, 2022. 2026’s votes by post are counted after the polling stations.

  1. SDA RS18.3% 5,500 by post
  2. DF FBiH4.4% 4,481 by post
  3. HDZ 1990 FBiH4.2% 1,063 by post
  4. DNS RS3.9% 836 by post
  5. NES FBiH3.1% 1,454 by post
  6. SDA FBiH2.6% 6,276 by post
  7. HDZ BiH FBiH2.5% 3,466 by post
  8. SDP FBiH2.5% 3,177 by post
  9. NS FBiH2.1% 1,035 by post
  10. SBiH FBiH1.6% 412 by post

Source: Central Election Commission of BiH · final results

Votes that elected nobody

Wasted votes and crowded ballots

The share of valid votes that went to lists winning no seat, and how many lists stood. More lists on a ballot usually means more votes left with nothing.

  1. State House · FBiH16.6%13.0% in 2018 · 28 lists in 2022
  2. State House · RS10.0%4.6% in 2018 · 22 lists in 2022
  3. Federation House8.8%8.7% in 2018 · 26 lists in 2022
  4. RS Assembly2.1%5.7% in 2018 · 31 lists in 2022

Source: Central Election Commission of BiH · final results; a list’s votes are wasted when it wins no seat in that parliament

How this was made

Method and data

A personal data series; it does not endorse or oppose any candidate or party. Every number comes from the Central Election Commission’s published results, read through its public results service. Country, entity and canton totals include post, absentee and mobile-team ballots; municipal figures are polling-station results, which leave those out.

Parties are followed across elections by name: each list is counted for the party that leads it, so a coalition list such as “HDZ BiH, HSS, HKDU…” counts for HDZ BiH, and lists no rule matches count as other. Candidates who ran on a joint list are counted for their own party and marked where it matters. The eight largest parties keep one colour across the series; maps colour only the three most frequent winners, the most a map can keep apart for every reader. The map uses 2013 municipal boundaries (geoBoundaries, CC BY 4.0): Stanari is drawn with Doboj, and Brčko’s two entity ballots are drawn as one.