Deputy PM: Voting machines will cost about 30 million BGN

Preliminary government estimates show that one voting machine will cost less than 2,000 BGN, Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev said on February 14. This means that all voting machines will cost 30 million BGN.

Donchev spoke during question time in Parliament answering question by the leader of the opposition socialist party. Kornelia Ninova, about when the ruling would be ready to introduce machine voting at elections, which according to her would ensure fair elections.

Two days earlier Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said that the government would buy voting machines for all polling stations.

We have been doing research into the market for month, which is not very easy. Because there is no European experience that we can take into account. The situation is also further complicated by the situation in China, where some of the components were made, Donchev said.

We can push for a lower price given the large number of machines that will be ordered. Approximately, the number wuill be between 15,000 and 20,000. The machines should be more than the number of the polling stations, more than 12,500. We need to be able to replace a defective machine, and also because there were polling stations with large numbers of voters, where if there was only one machine, it would delay the voting process. Therefore, such poliing stations need to be equipped with 2 or 3 machines, he said.