site.btaE-Governance Minister Starts Procedure for Compliance Certification of Voting Machines for Sunday Runoffs

Electronic Governance Minister Alexander Yolovski is opening a procedure for compliance certification of the voting machines for the second round of voting in Bulgaria's local elections this coming Sunday, said his Ministry Tuesday. 

The announcement comes a day after the Supreme Administrative Court reversed an order by the election administration that voting machines be eliminated for the local elections over hypothetical security breach.

The Court found that the Elections Code mandates the Minister of Electronic Governance with the certification of the voting machines' compliance with the law and he may not delegate that task to a Deputy Minister, which was the case with the certification of the machines for October 29. The Court also found that there is enough time before the November 5 runoffs for the Minister to fulfill his obligations.

The Ministry says in its statement says that it certification teams will work extra hours and will repeat certification procedures that were already performed once under the leadership of Deputy Minister Mihail Stoynov. "At the end of the new procedure, in order to avoid the risks of a repeat scrapping of machine voting, Electronic Governance Minister Alexander Yolovski will put his signature as well," says the statement.

Each step of the new procedure will be documented and the Ministry will ask the Central Election Commission to allow full transparency of all steps of the certification process, which are to be performed by the Ministry, the statement further says.

Also, the Electronic Governance Minister invited representatives of the State Agency for National Security, the parties, coalitions and nominating committees, NGOs, registered observers and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences to observe each step of the process. They will receive the entire information according to the procedure set out by the Central Election Commission.