site.btaElection Administration Refuses to Register Democratic Bulgaria Candidates in Stara Zagora

October 14 (BTA) - The Central Election Commission (CEC)
Thursday refused to register the candidates of Democratic
Bulgaria (DB) for the parliamentary elections in the southern
town of Stara Zagora. CEC spokesperson Rossitsa Mateva told a
news briefing that CEC confirmed a decision by the regional
election commission in Stara Zagora to refuse registration for
the DB candidate lists because they were not duly signed.

According to DB, the situation resulted from the election
administration's  failure to handle their papers because they
were signed with electronic signatures. It accused CEC of
seeking to eliminate them from the elections and said they would
 challenge the CEC decision at the Supreme Administrative Court.
 

The CEC spokesperson explained at the news briefing that the
Democratic Bulgaria documents were signed electronically but
were not submitted electronically and, instead, coalition
officials presented to the regional election commission
printouts. They were asked to verify that the printout was true
with the original but the refused to do that. When they were
instructed to send the documents electronically, it was done
from an email address that was not among the official emails of
the coalition.

Based on that, CEC decided that the coalition papers were not
duly signed.

CEC has also ordered a check to see how many parties, coalitions
 and nomination committees have submitted their documents and
lists of candidates for the November 14 elections in all 31
regional election commissions.

Mateva explained that the Election Code allows only use of
electronic signature by individuals declaring their support for
a party or a coalition in a sign-in.

Democratic Bulgaria said they have also submitted their
documents with electronic signatures to seven other regional
election commissions.

The coalition also in its statement that the Establishment
parties were opening an all-out war on them through the regional
 election commissions and CEC. RY/LN
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