site.btaUPDATED Ministry, Institutes Certify Voting Machines for November 5 Runoff

The Ministry of Electronic Governance, the Bulgarian Institute of Metrology and the Bulgarian Institute for Standardization have certified the conformity of the machine-voting technical devices for the second round of voting in the local elections on November 5, the Ministry said in a press release on Thursday.

"The teams of the three institutions worked vigorously and continuously in recent days in order to perform the procedure and ensure the conduct of fair and democratic elections on Sunday," the press release reads.

The report on conformity assessment of the type of  machine-voting technical devices as supplied with the requirements of the Election Code and of the technical specification and the certification decision have been sent to the Central Election Commission.

The decision is digitally signed by Electronic Governance Minister Alexander Yolovski, by the acting President of the Bulgarian Institute of Metrology Paun Ilchev and by the Chairperson of the Governing Board of the Bulgarian Institute for Standardization Ivelin Burov.

The two documents have been published on the official website of the Electronic Governance Ministry, at https://egov.government.bg/wps/portal/ministry-meu/elections.2023.

Earlier in the day, the Ministry's teams completed the activities and checks necessary for the verification of the machines. Thanks to the arrangements made by the Ministry and with the active assistance of the two institutes, the procedure was promptly completed before the end of the day on Thursday.

The Council of Ministers, together with the Interior Ministry, are multiplying their efforts against vote buying and selling for Sunday's elections, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said in a video address, distributed by the press service of the Council of Ministers on the occasion of the upcoming second round of local elections. 

"On the brink of the second round of local elections, one of the most important tasks for the government is to ensure fair elections. This task is even more important now because of the alarming statistics on the number of election violations that took place during the first round. A record number of alerts were received by the Interior Ministry during the election campaign, on the day of the vote and in the days after," Denkov said. 

"More than half of all alerts, 1125, are for vote buying. This is evidenced by the videos of corrupt practices that have emerged and are now being investigated," he added. 

Denkov announced that an increased physical presence of police and gendarmerie has been secured in towns and regions where most reports of criminal activity related to the election process have historically taken place. "The Interior Ministry teams are working overtime and in full mobilisation to limit vote buying as much as possible," he assured.