Skopje, 17 August 2021 (MIA) – The State Election Commission (SEC) on Tuesday adopted a strategic IT plan and passed decisions to allocate funds for the municipal election committees to organize the local elections on October 17 and for COVID-19 protection. Also, the Commission approved SEC’s new website to be launched tomorrow. Establishment of coordination body on ICT strategy and security issues for 2021-2024 is key, said SEC’s vice president Ditmire Shehu speaking about the necessity of adopting an action plan on SEC’s ICT strategy. “The coordination body will be tasked to organize inter-institutional communication, joint assessment of risks and possible risk scenarios, coordination public communication and providing voters with information, create mechanism to prevent identified risks, provide independent review of the implementation of security measures by SEC and organize joint exercises,” Shehu said. Also, SEC passed a decision on allocating funds to the municipal election committees to organize the October election of mayors and municipal councilors. A total of 2,335,000 denars (EUR 38,000) was approved. The sum will be distributed to the municipal committees depending on how many polling stations there are in a municipality. Also, the Commission set aside 585,000 denars (EUR 9,500) for products providing protection against COVID-19. Furthermore, SEC’s new website will be launched on Wednesday after being part of a project supporting election-related reforms, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Its design is simple and easily accessible offering simplified display of contents divided into several areas, including contents for voters, participants in the elections, the media and election bodies, it was announced.