site.btaUPDATED E-Government Minister Rules Out Problem with Machine Voting

I don’t think there will be a problem with machine voting, said caretaker e-Government Minister Valentin Mundrov on Nova TV. He said that the procedure for certification of the voting machines will begin on Saturday. This is possible after the contractor for the software submitted it to the Central Election Commission (CEC) on Friday. "There is enough time for the machines to be certified. We have never had so much time in any other elections," said Mundrov. 

He recalled that in the elections on June 9 there will be more than 11,600 machines. In all polling stations there will be video surveillance during the counting of ballots after the end of the election day. Video surveillance will be streamed online and recordings can be found on evideo.bg.  

In response to a question whether there are cyberattacks on the websites of state institutions because of the upcoming elections, the minister said that such attempts are continuous. The e-Government ministry, together with other departments, manage to cope, he added. According to Mundrov, the attackers are sponsored by foreign countries. 

Later, the e-Government Ministry started the process of certifying the voting machines for the upcoming elections for members of the European Parliament and MPs on June 9.  Ministry experts together with caretaker E-government Minister Valentin Mundrov and State Agency for National Security observers entered the protected room where the testing of the machines will be carried out. Journalists watched the trial live on screen in the lobby of the Ministry. 
 
Next week, experts from the Defence Ministry and IT specialists are expected to participate in the process of certification of the machines.  Asked whether machine voting can be cancelled as it happened in the local elections, Minister Mundrov said that appropriate measures have been taken so that everyone would be convinced that such a situation as last year would not happen.