Voting

Election authorities in Bulgaria are not to decide until Saturday on whether voting machines will be commissioned for the snap poll due in a month.

The final say is expected a day into the election campaign, after the Central Election Commission (CEC) said needed more time than the initial deadline on Friday as it was waiting for a report by a special subcommission.

The Central Election Commission must decide on Friday whether the only firm which made an offer for the delivery of machines for electronic voting fulfils the requirements.

Bulgarians who will vote in the country in the snap parliamentary elections on March 26 will be able to note their preference for a candidate for parliamentary deputy on the list of the preferred political formation but Bulgarians voting abroad will not be able to do so.

Ecuador will hold a run-off presidential election in April after a hard fought and inconclusive first round, the electoral commission said Feb. 22.

The voting is being watched closely to see if oil-producing Ecuador will become the latest leftist-run country in Latin America to shift to the right.

Bulgaria's Constitutional court has abolished unanimously compulsory voting, reported Praven Svyat. The decision was adopted with 11 votes "for" since Anastas Anastasov was absent from the meeting on Thursday.

Electronic voting via which the snap parliamentary elections must take place on March 26 will be without full technical support.

This became clear from the documentation which the Central Election Commission published on Tuesday, reported BGNES.

So far, not a single firm has submitted documents for the delivery of machines for electronic voting after the announcement of the public procurement order.

The machines for electronic voting have to be delivered to Bulgaria no later than March 10, 2017, reported BGNES.

The installation of the software has to be completed by March 18, while the machines have to be delivered to voting sections by March 25.

The machines for electronic voting must be easy to transport and user-friendly.

The Central Election Commission has decided to announce a public procurement order for the renting of electronic voting machines and not for the purchase of such devices.

The order includes additional machines in case of technical failure.

Electronic voting has to take place in all voting sections in Bulgaria and abroad.

The Supreme Administrative Court has annulled the decision of the Central Election Commission (CEC) ruling that the referendum is null and void due to 12,027 missing votes.

The magistrates ruled that the commission did not count 490 valid votes, as proven by the expert commission appointed to investigate the case.