Parliament’s legal affairs committee approved to resume use of paper ballots in elections

After 18 hours of sitting, the legal affairs committee of the 48th National Assembly approved to resume use of paper ballots in elections. They also proposed that the voting booths should be replaced with screens. Central election commission will increase its membership from 15 to 25 people and will change after each parliamentary elections.

The Public Council of the Central Election Commission ceases to exist. There will be no separate multi-member constituency abroad for parliamentary elections. These are just some of the over 100 proposals that the legal affairs committee passed during its midnight marathon.

The majority approved the BSP's proposal to bring back mixed voting - by machine and paper ballot. All 12 representatives of the so-called "paper ballot" coalition - GERB, BSP and MRF - voted in favour, while the 11 MPs from "We Continue the Change", "Democratic Bulgaria", "Vazrazhdane” and "Bulgaria Ascending" were against. This means that in polling stations with more than 300 voters, citizens will be able to choose exactly how to exercise their right to vote - whether with a machine or a paper ballot.

"We Continue the Change" proposal for separate polling stations to vote either by machine or by paper did not gather the necessary support. The MDC's proposal to abolish voting by the current machines altogether was supported only by the MDC's representatives, 16 MPs abstained.

The majority in the parliamentary legal affairs committee also decided that the receipts from the machine voting should be turned into "ballot papers" and that the machines should not issue vote totals at the end of election day. Instead, the members of the polling station committees will count the "machine voting ballot papers" by hand and so the devices become printers. This has become a point of contention – “We Continue the Change” asked what would happen if it turned out that there were 150 ballots from the machines, but 100 people had voted according to a list. The counting and completion of the protocols will be broadcast live, but the CCTV will not be recorded electronically. Democratic Bulgaria's idea to set up counting centres to report the results instead of the polling stationt commissions was not accepted either.

The topic of publishing the names of the technicians who operate the machines on the Central Election Commission’s website led to an exchange of replicas. Previously, Assen Vassilev and Kalina Konstantinova from "We Continue the Change", as well as Delyan Dobrev from GERB came as supportive opinions in the legal affairs committee. On the proposal to list the technicians, Assen Vassilev asked ironically that the CEC's website should also list delivery men, printers and security guards. On the proposal of GERB the multi-member constituency abroad for parliamentary elections was finally abolished.

MRF said there were about 2 million Bulgarians abroad and there should be several such regions. At around 1.00 a.m. GERB, MRF and BSP refused to adjourn the meeting and continue on another day. In protest, "Vazrazhdane" left the chamber. Eventually, at dawn on Thursday, the amendments to the Electoral Code were adopted at second reading in the legal affairs committee.

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