site.btaUPDATED E-Government Ministry Presents Hash Code to Be Displayed in Machine Voting on November 5 Runoffs

The generated hash code, which will be displayed on each ballot paper in the machine voting of the runoff of the local elections on November 5, is E85541B6097EEB6DC00214D5AC78610071F61C3C72A00588A27E87117C80EFF2, the e-Government Ministry said in a press release after completing the trusted software build process.

The software is locked with a key consisting of three different passwords of three members of the Central Election Commission (CEC).

CEC experts carried out the trusted software build that will be installed on the voting machines. The process was conducted in a controlled environment provided by the Ministry of e-Government. Representatives of four of the parties in Parliament were present at the process which was monitored by specialists of the State Agency for National Security (SANS) and was broadcast live.

Four of the twelve representatives of the parties and coalitions participating in the elections accepted CEC’s invitation and got access to the source code of the voting machines' software, the Ministry also said.

The e-Government Ministry also made public photos of demo ballot papers printed by a voting machine installed with a software under the trusted software build. The ballot papers display the hash code that will be displayed during the election process.

Тhe teams certifying the voting machines for the runoffs continue to work intensively, the ministry also said.

On October 27, CEC voted, 12-2, to decide that only paper ballots will be used at the October 29 local elections and in a possible second round of voting on November 5. CEC's decision came after There Is Such a People (TISP) and Vazrazhdane claimed in the morning that the voting machines were compromised. TISP Floor Leader Toshko Yordanov told journalists in Parliament that, according to a report from SANS, on which the floor leaders were briefed at a meeting with the National Assembly chair and deputy chairs, two days after CEC had generated a hash code in a public event, Deputy e-Government Minister Mihail Stoynov entered the room, repeated the whole procedure, took pictures with his phone, and downloaded the information on a memory stick.

On October 30, a day after the first round of the local elections, the Supreme Administrative Court revoked CEC’s decision) that eliminated voting machines from the local elections and returned the machines for the run-off elections on November 5.