site.btaExperts Argue for Reconsideration of Timeline for Introduction of Electronic Voting

Sofia, February 22 (BTA) - The Central Election Commission (CEC) has informed the National Assembly of the need to align the deadlines laid down in the Election Code and the Electronic Identification Act as a prerequisite for introducing electronic voting, CEC Chairperson Ivilina Alexieva said Thursday during a discussion on remote and electronic voting. The forum was organized by CEC's Advisory Board. "We also informed Parliament of the danger of hacking attacks and the ability to counteract them," Vassileva said.

Chairman of the Managing Board of Information Services AD Mihail Konstantinov said that "there will be electronic voting, the only question is when". Konstantinov stressed that events occurred in the past three months which require reconsideration of the deadlines for introducing electronic voting.

He spoke about a security glitch in the smart cards of a major German manufacturer which are now being replaced, and about another such problem in the processors produced by the biggest world companies. "They are making desperate attempts to restore the security of the processors," Konstantinov said.

The expert noted that the most important thing in voting is trust and if such glitches happen in remote voting, it will disappear. Konstantinov said that many countries in Europe have given up on machine and electronic voting. He urged for caution and reconsideration of the deadlines for introducing it.

Prof. Svetoslav Markov of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences said that the security of the network used for the voting needs to be the same as for defence networks as there have been no glitches in them so far.