site.bta Central Election Commission Denies Manipulation of Sunday's Referendum Results

Central Election Commission Denies Manipulation of Sunday's Referendum Results

Sofia, November 8 (BTA) - The Central Election Commission (CEC) is working on announcing the final results of the first round of the presidential elections last Sunday and has not discussed the letter of TV broadcaster Slavi Trifonov in which he accused the Commission of manipulating the results of Sunday's referendum, CEC Spokesperson Tsvetozar Tomov told BTA. There are just a few hours until the deadline to announce the results of the presidential elections, which is why CEC is concentrating on that.

The deadline for the referendum results is five days after the vote. CEC has not committed any violation, let alone a monstrous one, as the letter claims; it has done its job by entering the tally sheet data, said Tomov.

In an open letter Trifonov, one of the organisers of the referendum, accused CEC of a "monstrous manipulation". According to him, the number of voters in the referendum was 3,501,220. To make the decision of the referendum mandatory requires 3,500,585 votes. He accused CEC of subtracting 13,792 votes to ensure the referendum is not binding. The Commission wants to subtract those ballots because they were cast without envelopes, but the law does not require only valid ballots to be counted in reporting the voter turnout, Trifonov argued.