site.btaRuling Majority to Propose Opening of Up to 35 Voting Sections Abroad in National Elections

Ruling Majority to Propose Opening of Up to 35 Voting Sections Abroad in National Elections

Sofia, May 25 (BTA) - The ruling majority plans to table draft amendments to the Election Code according to which up to 35 voting sections can be opened abroad, be it in the EU or third countries, once 60 applications for voting in Bulgarian national elections have been submitted, parliamentary Legal Affairs Committee Chair Danail Kirilov told journalists Wednesday. The draft changes will be tabled in Parliament only after the already adopted amendments to the Election Code are gazetted, he specified.

The draft revisions concern Article 14 of the Election Code which was recently amended and then vetoed by the President because it limits the possibilities for opening voting sections for Bulgarian elections abroad. After the National Assembly overrode the veto on May 18, the head of State threatened to refer the vetoed amendments to the Constitutional Court for encroachment on the constitutional rights of expatriate Bulgarians.

According to Kirilov, the new revisions will guarantee the equality of voters abroad and, therefore, the President and the National Ombudsman have no reason to refer these to the Constitutional Court. Furthermore, it has already issued a decision on the case of voting sections abroad, deciding on principle that this is a matter of the State's organization of work, he added.

Bulgarians who wish to vote abroad can submit their applications online without their signature having to be certified, because the goal is to simply give the Foreign Ministry and the electoral administration a general idea of the situation, Kirilov explained. In his words, the upper limit of 60 applications will not affect Bulgarian expatriates except those in Turkey. Obviously, the real problem there is the mobilization achieved by unlawful means, he commented.

The draft revisions outline two regimes for the manner in which the location of the voting sections will be determined. In non-EU countries, voting sections will be
set up by the Central Election Commission based on the reasoned proposal of the head of the diplomatic representation in the corresponding state. The diplomats will make their proposals after taking into view all legal, objective and factual circumstances on which the opening of voting sections depends, such as the security in the country in question, the distribution of Bulgarians there, and the declared interest in voting. In EU Member States, the current procedure will continue to be applied, Kirilov said.