site.btaCentral Election Commission Works on Setting Up Remote Electronic Voting System to Be Used Experimentally in 2018

Sofia, January 4 (BTA) - Analyzing the simulations carried out and a research of world experience and strictly conforming to all Election Code provisions, the Central Election Commission (CEC) is working on the establishment of a remote electronic voting system on the basis of which experimental remote e-voting will be available in 2018, the CEC said on Thursday.

The Commission wrote this in a letter signed by its Chair Ivilina Aleksieva and Secretary Sevinch Solakova, replying to a reminder by National Ombudsman Maya Manolova that, under the effective election legislation, three simulations of remote electronic voting must take place within less than five months.

The CEC points out that it carried out remote e-voting simulations in December 2017 and invited Manolova, in her present capacity as Ombudsman and her previous capacity as deputy chair of the 42nd National Assembly and chair of the parliament committee that drafted the Election Code, to attend and personally take part in the simulations. "Your attendance would have enabled you, as well as the rest of the participants, to get a firsthand idea of the possible ways to conduct remote electronic voting and of the negative aspects of its various methods," the Commission wrote.

"Handling remote-electronic voting activities, the CEC must reckon with the provisions of the Election Code as well as with the mandatory rules of the Electronic Identification Act," the Commission said in its letter to the National Ombudsman.

On December 12, 2017, the CEC and Information Services Plc carried out successively three simulations of remote electronic voting: for European Parliament elections, parliamentary elections and local elections, with voting for fictitious parties, coalitions or candidates. Under May 2016 amendments to the Election Code, experimental remote electronic voting is to be conducted at three successively conducted elections, including by-elections, after January 1, 2018.