BULGARIA’S CENTRAL ELECTION COMMISSION RELEASED OFFICIAL RESULTS OF THE REFERENDUM

The referendum turnout fell short of 12,027 votes to make the result mandatory, Bulgaria’s Central Election Commission (CEC) said on 11th of November when it announced the referendum vote results officially. The deadline for the release of the official results is within 5 days after the end of the vote.

Regardless of the result however, the three questions will have to go through parliamentary debate.

One envelope in the ballot box is counted as one vote, as required by the law. The CEC said that there were 3,488,588 envelopes found in the ballot box. For comparison the turnout at the previous general elections in 2014 was 3,500,583 people. In order to become binding, the referendum results need to match the turnout in the previous nation-wide election, namely the 2014 general elections. So, in practice the referendum turnout failed short of 12,000 votes to make the result binding.

The CEC said that 550 ballots papers were found without envelope but this figure would not significantly affect the final result.

The results show that the three questions of the national referendum received an overwhelming support by Bulgarian voters both in the country and those voting outside Bulgaria.

As soon as the polling day was over on Sunday, 6th of November, Slavi Trifonov and his team, who initiated the referendum described the results as a huge victory for the direct democracy in Bulgaria.

photo by BTA