Ruling Party Proposes New Electoral Code Amendments, Including Machine-Only Voting in Larger Polling Stations and Eliminate Overseas Constituency

The governing majority has submitted new amendments to the Electoral Code to the Parliament. One of the proposals would abolish paper ballots in polling stations with more than 300 registered voters, a change that could take effect as early as the forthcoming presidential election. Other proposed amendments concern voting abroad, with the stated aim of making elections fairer and faster.

The governing parties want voting to be conducted exclusively by machine in all polling stations with more than 300 voters. The objective is to eliminate invalid ballots, speed up the electoral process and improve the accuracy of the results.

Petar Vitanov, chairman of the parliamentary group of Progressive Bulgaria: “We also envisage providing additional voting machines, as well as paper ballots in the event of force majeure circumstances.”

Some of the proposed amendments concern voting by Bulgarians abroad.

Petar Vitanov: “The ‘Abroad’ electoral constituency is being eliminated. We believe it is impractical, very difficult to implement and unnecessarily complicates the electoral process.”

The proposals also remove the limit on the number of polling stations that may be opened in countries outside the European Union.

Petar Vitanov:

“This restriction was driven by narrow party-political interests and was, to put it mildly, discriminatory.”

The governing parties also propose that responsibility for developing and certifying the software used in voting machines should be shared with the Ministry of Interior.

Petar Vitanov:

“Previously, almost everything related to software certification was entrusted to a single institution. This will effectively double oversight and ensure there is no interference with the software.”

The amendments to the Electoral Code are expected to be debated and voted on in the plenary chamber by the end of July.