Information Services, Bulgaria’s national system integrator, has submitted the updated data from the October 27, 2024, parliamentary elections to the Central Election Commission (CEC), the company's press centre told BTA on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Information Services CEO Ivaylo Filipov, who participated in a parliamentary hearing, said that the company would meet the deadline set by the CEC for completing the recalculations of election results in the case concerning the legitimacy of the 51st National Assembly elections.
Filipov reported that there were seven problematic polling stations. In two of them, court-appointed experts recorded 'zero' votes for all political parties and candidates, despite machine and paper ballots being used. He noted that in one station, the entire paper vote count was erased, while in four others, all machine votes were erased. Surveillance footage clearly shows that both machine and paper ballots were present in the transparent ballot boxes at these seven polling stations, Filipov emphasized.
A total of 780 votes went missing across all political parties, of which 739 were in favour of the current parliamentary-represented parties plus the Velichie (Grandeur) party, Filipov added.
During the hearing, it was revealed that Filipov had referred the matter to the prosecuting magistracy. Meanwhile, political parties and coalitions have filed complaints, primarily based on video recordings, a process also facilitated by Information Services. Filipov highlighted that the footage shows a significant number of both paper and machine ballots, yet the official records for these sections list them as 'zero'.
The Constitutional Court has been approached by several parties challenging the lawfulness of the October 27, 2024 elections. As part of the case it opened, the Court hired experts to do a new count of the ballots in 2,204 polling stations and once the recount was done, it instructed the Central Election Commission to recalculate the results. CEC, in turn, asked election services operator Information Services to do the recalculation. On March 10, Information Services said that all relevant paperwork had been provided to the prosecuting magistracy. In an unprecedented statement, the Court said that providing the election papers to the prosecuting magistracy without its permission hinders its efforts to conclude the case challenging the election results.
