site.btaCaretaker Government Reports Professional, Transparent Fulfillment of Its Election Preparation Commitments

The caretaker government fulfilled professionally, transparently and in excellent dialogue with the Central Election Commission (CEC) all its commitments under the Electoral Code regarding the organisational and technical preparations for the October 27 parliamentary elections, reads a caretaker cabinet's report published on the Council of Ministers' website. The report on the government's material and technical support for the elections was prepared by the Minister of Innovation and Growth, in his capacity as coordinator of the executive bodies with responsibilities for the electoral legislation (Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Electronic Governance, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Justice, and regional governors). 

The report reads that the government has made every effort to upgrade and significantly improve the organisation, fairness and publicity of the vote within its powers. "The CEC Public Council commended the measures taken by the public administration. The caretaker government proposed to the CEC a number of measures to improve the rules and procedures to ensure machine voting. Measures were taken to destroy the machine-voting paper stored by municipal and regional administrations from previous elections," the caretaker cabinet wrote in its report, adding that the implementation of its voting commitments has also been praised by independent observers; international observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have explicitly welcomed the good organisation of the elections by the election administration.

"The numbers for the authentication of voting machines were publicly drawn, and also for the first time the serial numbers of the machines themselves, rather than their numbers from the CEC list, were entered into the random number generator. In order to ensure greater security, a check of the parameterisation software was also included in the authentication methodology. No such verification had been done before," the report reads. "It is this software that configures the machines in terms of the candidate lists, the preferences, according to the respective district election commissions. The State Agency for National Security (SANS) again provided observers for the verification process; external experts were also engaged," the document reads further.

The cabinet points out that these are the most rigorously verified elections yet, and specifies that more than a third of all voting machines were verified: 3,306 out of 9,510 machines were verified. In comparison, 664 machines were verified in the previous elections. Twice as many civil servants - 50 - were provided to carry out the checks. "For the first time, at the insistence of the Executive, the CEC allowed media representatives into the warehouse storing the machines during the checks. The organization established in the Directorate General of Civil Registration and Administrative Services (DGRAO) and the improved communication with other ministries involved in the preparation of the elections, as well as with the municipalities, ensured a smooth, lawful and in many cases early implementation of all the obligations of the DGRAO in the electoral process," the caretaker government also reports, explaining that for these elections, 719 polling stations were opened in 57 countries, as well as 26 polling stations in prisons and detention facilities to ensure that all persons were able to exercise their right to vote. 

As ordered by caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev, the Interior Ministry created in full transparency the organisation for the protection of public order and the security of the vote and for the prevention and counteraction of crimes, the report reads, and recalls the establishment of a national inter-agency unit between the prosecution service, the Interior Ministry and the SANS, which according to the Election Code carries out the coordination and interaction between the institutions for the legality of the elections. "The Interior Ministry opened a 24-hour hotline for alerts related to violations of the electoral process. Every single alert was processed," the report reads.

"Video surveillance and video recording during the counting of ballot papers by the CEC is an additional tool to ensure transparency and fairness of the elections. There was live online coverage in 11,400 out of 11,626  polling stations (98.06%). In comparison, in the previous elections on June 9, 2024, there was live online broadcasting in 11,092 out of 11,630 polling stations (95.37%)," the document reads further. "An upgrade was made in terms of real-time video surveillance and video recording of the work of the Sectional Election Commissions after the end of polling day: voice messages that alert the members in case the battery goes down and they have to plug in the devices to the power supply, and if the devices are not positioned properly," the report specifies.

All available recordings from the online broadcast have been uploaded and are available at https://evideo.bg, with the first upload occurring at 10:00 pm on election night. After the devices were returned in Sofia, Information Services began downloading the recordings from the devices, with the entire process completed by the end of the workday on November 1, 2024. It was determined that 65 devices were missing records. The information about the lack of records in the devices will be provided to the CEC for further action, the caretaker government writes in the report.