site.btaExperimental Machine Voting Will Take Place in Five Election Districts

Experimental Machine  Voting Will Take Place in Five Election Districts


Sofia, September 11 (BTA) - Experimental machine voting will
take place in 300 voting sections across five election districts
- Sofia, Plovdiv, Pernik, Kyustendil and Pleven. The specific
section numbers will be determined by a decision of the Central
Election Commission (CEC), said the Commission's Spokesperson
Kamelia Neikova during a Thursday news conference.

A total of 774 candidate lists have been registered across all
election districts, while the number of candidate MPs stands at
6,063. Three of the candidates are independent - Nikola
Vaptsarov in Blagoevgrad, Oktai Enimehmedov in Bourgas and
Gospodin Tonev in Haskovo. This, however, is not the final
number due to ongoing appeal procedures.

A total of six candidates have been removed from different lists
- some for not being 21 years of age or older on election day
and others for holding citizenship of another country, in
addition to their Bulgarian one.

A total of 30 complaints and alerts have been submitted to CEC
so far, some of them about denial of registration and others
against CEC decisions, denying NGOs to observe the elections. A
total of 16 NGOs have applied to observe the elections. The
total number of registered observers is currently 856.

A total of 27,401 Bulgarian citizens have submitted electronic
applications to vote abroad, with 24,252 of them being approved.
Written applications are coming in slower, which is why their
final number can not be yet stated, but 1,212 have been received
so far.

There is an ongoing procedure for printing the ballot papers at
the Bulgarian National Bank's printing press, Neikova said. She
presented a sample ballot, which slightly differs from the ones
used in the European Parliament elections in May. The ballots
will once again have a square check space on the left, which
contains the names and numbers of parties, coalitions and
independent candidates. There are circles on the right for
marking the preferential vote. This time, however, it will be
specifically written above the circles that the checks there are
only for the preferential vote.

There will once again be a number on the bottom right corner,
which will be torn out by the sectional commission
representatives.