site.btaFewer Bulgarians Have Declared They Will Vote Abroad Compared to June 9 Elections

The Central Election Commission (CEC) has received 30,688 declarations for voting abroad on October 27, down from the previous snap parliamentary elections on June 9, CEC Chair Kameliya Neykova said on bTV on Wednesday. Anyone with the right to vote and is outside Bulgaria on election day can vote after presenting an identification document, she specified.

The voting machines are stored in the same place they have been from the beginning: a private warehouse. According to the Election Code, they should be stored at a State-owned property, but no permanent solution has been found, she noted. She explained that the CEC has received a reply explaining that the various ministries do not have such a property, so the government has again instructed the CEC to sign a contract for a rented storage space. 

"We have already had a meeting with the company that stores the machines, a price indexation has been requested," she said. The rent is currently around BGN 45-50,000 outside the active season, and in election season there are activities that raise the price to BGN 200,000. In addition, there is a proposal for indexation of the price for warehousing activities, requesting an increase of 16%.

According to Neykova, a new warehouse could have already been built to store the more than 12,000 machines.

Currently there are no risks that would lead to there being no machine voting. With regard to paper, all questions should be directed to the central bank's printing press. "We have been assured that the paper meets the requirements of the machine manufacturer," the CEC Chairman said. She added that two different laboratories have given a conclusion that the paper meets the manufacturer's requirements.

A total of 28 parties and coalitions and one independent candidate are participating in these elections, Neykova recalled. The electronic ballot paper will be two or three pages, depending on the number of registered lists, she added.