Central Election Commission announced end of polling day in the second round of voting in Bulgaria's local elections

At 9 p.m, Bulgaria’s Central Election Commission (CEC) announced the end of polling day in the local elections runoff on November 5.

Low turnout, suspended use of voting machines in 47 polling stations and problems with the devices, which we have not had so far, CEC reported.

26.40% was the turnout at 16.00. The lowest turnout was in Rousse - 15.77%, the highest was in Roman - 77.94%; in Sofia it reached 23.79%. In the first round of the voting in the local election, the turnout at 16.00 was 34.16%. The CEC has no explanation as to why this low turnout.

The use of 47 voting machines was suspended, 10 of them were in Sofia. Very often the machines printed only one instead of two ballot papers. The CEC explained that this is the first time such problem occurred with machine ballots. They urged to put a stamp on the machine ballots and two on the paper ballots.

The commission received 18 complaints and 27 signals. CEC also received one report of vote buying which was sent to the Ministry of Interior.