Serbian Voters Line West 45th Street for Hours at Consulate

Serbian immigrants from across the Northeast packed a Midtown block on Sunday to cast ballots in a parliamentary election back home, waiting around two hours in line outside the Serbian consulate in Manhattan.

The consulate sits three blocks north of Bryant Park, and the line ran down West 45th Street. Polls opened at 2 a.m. and were set to close at 3 p.m., a window that mirrored voting hours in Serbia itself. Just after noon, Gothamist reported, the line still stretched half a block toward Fifth Avenue. Serbian media reported hundreds of people were waiting for the doors to open at 2 a.m.

It is unclear why officials did not adjust the hours to make voting easier for Serbian citizens in America, according to Gothamist. The Serbian government set up only a handful of polling stations across North America. Washington, D.C., ran the same hours as New York, while Chicago voted from 1 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time. The BBC reported long lines at Serbian consulates in Slovenia, Germany, Los Angeles and Paris, as well as inside Serbia.

The vote came after the Serbian government called a snap election last month, ahead of former President Aleksandar Vučić’s resignation. Vučić’s party has held power since 2012, and he had sought to return as prime minister. The Associated Press reported that he conceded defeat Sunday. He faced a student-led opposition movement campaigning against corruption, which emerged after a canopy at a train station in Serbia collapsed and killed 16 people.

Voters in line told Gothamist they were frustrated by the narrow hours but undeterred. Milos Lazic, who lives in Utica and drove down to the city to vote, said the government “did a really poor job” of trying to keep people from voting and ended up making them angrier. Dusan Boric, who has lived in New York for about 20 years, said it “could have been arranged differently” but that the long line showed overseas voters were still able to take part.

Some came from just across the Hudson. Stefan Bogner of Jersey City said he got in line just before 11 a.m. and had waited about two hours. He called the turnout “really wonderful” and said it showed how motivated and united people feel. Marija Vukojevac, a Brooklyn resident voting abroad for the first time, said she was glad so many people showed up, whatever the result.

Out-of-towners got help from a new site. VoteBnB, which launched this year to help Serbians living abroad arrange voting, showed 59 people in New York City offering places to stay for voters traveling to the polls.

A staffer at the New York consulate told Gothamist they could not answer questions without authorization from Belgrade. Serbia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to Gothamist’s request for comment.