Elections to the fourth convocation of the Coordination Council will take place from May 11 to May 17, 2026, inclusive. Today, Pavel Liber, the leader of the development team behind the voting platform for the upcoming elections, spoke about the newly introduced features and the solutions intended to ensure voter security, including for those residing in Belarus.
An information campaign dedicated to the elections to the fourth convocation of the Coordination Council is still underway. The “Try Slany” platform presents electoral lists along with the politicians and activists included in them. Representatives of each list registered by the election commission have access to the platform and the opportunity to present themselves and their candidates.
Representatives of many electoral lists have already filled in their information. Each list has an AI assistant that can provide a brief summary of the people included in those lists. Later, immediately before the Coordination Council elections, all data from these electoral lists will be automatically transferred to the voting platform. As Pavel Liber noted, it is in the interest of the representatives of these lists to provide information about themselves in order not to appear faceless compared with their competitors.
The voting platform itself is a separate product and will have no connection to the “Try Slany” information resource. According to Liber, the platform is based on a solution that has already proven its security during the 2024 Coordination Council elections. It has only been improved and supplemented with new functionality.
During the elections, two voting channels will be available — a mobile channel and a web channel.
The mobile channel is an application that, as in 2024, is intended for voters residing abroad. For security reasons, developers strongly advise those living in Belarus not to install the mobile application. Those voters are advised to use the web channel.
Among the new features, the mobile application will now offer two voter verification options. The first is the standard blue Belarusian passport. The second is the Belarusian national passport, unofficially referred to as the “New Belarus passport.” Voters will therefore be able to choose which document they wish to use for verification.
No other documents will be accepted for verification. Residence permits from different countries, foreigner passports, and other identity documents will not be suitable. As Pavel Liber explained, the reason for the restrictions is that such documents use different identifiers. Verification through them carries risks, including attempts to vote multiple times. The “New Belarus passport,” however, uses the same ID as the blue Belarusian passport. This eliminates the possibility of voting with both documents.
If a voter chooses the blue passport, the verification process will be the same as during the 2024 voting: the person shows the document to the smartphone or computer camera and then shows their face. The software compares the data and determines its validity.
The identification system in the web channel, recommended for those voting from Belarus, will operate in the same way for holders of the blue Belarusian passport. Developers particularly stressed that, due to phishing concerns, the link to the web channel should only be obtained from trusted sources, such as the “Try Slany” platform, Coordination Council information channels, or independent media outlets.
If a voter chooses the Belarusian national passport, or “New Belarus passport,” for identification, they will be redirected to the website of the Belarusian passport center where the document was issued. The voter must then confirm their willingness to transfer information from the passport system to the voting platform.
When obtaining the document at the Belarusian passport center, all applicants undergo verification in person by submitting biometric data and photographs. The blue Belarusian passport is also checked. According to Liber, the Belarusian passport center therefore already carries out a full verification procedure during the issuance process.
After confirming their identity using one of the two possible passports, the voter receives a digital ID. This year, the platform developers changed providers. The new provider is Sumsub, which Pavel Liber described as a reliable and suitable partner. As a result, verifications from the 2024 Belarus ID platform will no longer be valid, and users will have to complete the procedure again.
After verification, voters are redirected to a page containing all electoral lists running for the fourth convocation of the Coordination Council. They select one of the lists, click the “vote” button, and then confirm their choice.
After voting, users can copy the code of their vote. Using this code, they can verify on the Vocdoni blockchain platform, which records the votes, that their vote was registered correctly. According to Liber, this ensures double verification of the integrity of the voting process.
One of the most important issues for potential voters concerns the security of participation in the elections. As Liber noted, the voting platform is based on the same solution used during the 2024 Coordination Council elections. Developers are confident that there were no leaks or data breaches at that time. The 2024 solution also underwent a serious independent information and cybersecurity audit.
As before, the principle of open source will be maintained. According to Liber, members of the election commission, including individuals with IT backgrounds capable of conducting qualified testing, will be able to examine the code. In addition, the principle of distributed access to the infrastructure has been preserved. This means that no single person will have access to all platform data. Moreover, the solution itself does not include a centralized database.
In the coming days, developers together with the election commission plan to conduct internal system tests and make minimal improvements if necessary. Pavel Liber expects that voters will be able to install the mobile application on their devices as early as May 8 or 9. According to him, the application will no longer be called Belarus ID because of Apple’s policy requiring that state names not be used without affiliation to official state structures. The name of the application will therefore change, and developers will soon announce the new one.
As for the web channel, which will allow voters in Belarus to cast their ballots, it will open only on May 11, the first day of voting. This decision was made for security reasons — developers believe that the earlier the channel is opened, the more time the regime will have to prepare a coordinated attack against it.
Thus, the voting procedure is fairly simple and, according to the developers, secure. In the near future, text and video instructions will also be released for those wishing to participate in the elections for the new composition of the Coordination Council.
