Bulgarian Election System Referendum 'Binding on Parliament' - Prosecution

The Bulgarian Prosecutor's Office has described the results of a recent referendum on the country's election system as "binding".

The development comes after an intitial ruling by election authorities that the referendum results fall short of the turnout that would make the result mandatory.

A court sitting begins on Tuesday to determine whether the referendum should be officially considered valid. A ruling is expected within two weeks.

(You can find more about the referendum case here.)

The prosecution finds that some 12 500 ballots declared "invalid" as they were not wrapped in an envelope should be deemed part of the voter turnout, instead of being taken out of it.

Referendum actvitity fell just above 12 000 votes short of the threshold that would have imposed on Parliament the obligation of changing Bulgaria's electoral system and slashing state subsidies.

Adding the ballots that were left unwrapped, the electoral turnout passes the required threshold, which is always set by the last parliamenary election - in this case, just above 3.5 million.

The Central Election Commission contests the result.