Election technology

Today is a day for reflection ahead of tomorrow's elections for the National Assembly and the European Parliament in Bulgaria. Campaigning for any party or candidate is strictly prohibited until the end of election day at 8 p.m. on June 9. The election campaign officially ended at midnight.

Elections under the new rules can be held as early as April 2. This was announced by the Chairwoman of the CEC, Kamelia Neikova, during a hearing in the National Assembly in connection with the preparations for holding early parliamentary elections.

The reason is that at an earlier date the supply of the required quantity of secure paper for machine voting cannot be guaranteed:

The government approved the cost plan for the expenses for the preparation and execution of the parliamentary elections on October 2, 2022. The approved funds are in the amount of BGN 70.5(EUR 35.7) million.

The Central Election Commission has decided that in the "two in one" elections on November 14, voting will take place on one machine and with one smart card. The receipts will be two or one, depending on whether the voter votes for both types of elections or only for one.

In the parliamentary and presidential elections on November 14, one vote will be cast with one card, but in most of the sections where the voting is by machine, the devices will probably be not one, but two. This is being discussed in the Central Election Commission, but there is no final decision yet, it became clear from the words of its spokesperson Rositsa Mateva today.

Dimitar Dimitrov, Deputy Chairman of the Central Election Commission, said that there had been no reports of voting machines malfunctions. Voting has not been suspended or stopped due to voting machine malfunction, he said, commenting on media stories about glitches in machine voting caused by the hot weather.

There will be no machine voting abroad, Stoil Tsitselkov, deputy chairman of the Public Council at the Central Election Commission - CEC, has told BNR's Horizont program.

The snap parliamentary elections on July 11 will cost BGN15.75 million, Chair of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Kamelia Neikova told BNT today. The draft estimate is made taking into account the supply of another 1,500 voting machines.

In 700 polling sections in the country will probably be placed two voting machines and not only one. This is the assessment of the Central Election Commission based on the results of the first test voting with machines, which took place today.

About 1,000 additional voting machines will have to be secured for the early parliamentary elections on July 11, the Central Election Commission (CEC) told a news briefing on Thursday. According to CEC spokesperson Rositsa Mateva, the voting machines secured for the local elections and by-elections can be used on July 11 or, in case of ballotage, there is an option for software updates.