site.btaIdea of Creating Counting Centres Is Focus of Discussion on Election Code Changes

The proposal to establish counting centres was the focus of a discussion on "Election Rules on Retake: Possible Changes and Their Impact". The roundtable was organized by the Institute for Public Development. Other topics included machine voting and the preparation of electoral rolls. 

The forum was opened by the President of the National Assembly Nataliya Kiselova and was attended by representatives of parliamentary groups, civil society organizations and experts.

The Parliament adopted the five bills for amendments to the Election Code at first reading at the beginning of January.

Opening the forum, the National Assembly Chair said that  the main issue is not the voting technology but the reluctance of Bulgarian citizens to participate in elections. Kiselova identified the quality of polling station commission members, who represent different parties and coalitions, as the most pressing issue. She proposed introducing mandatory pre-election training to raise standards.

Antoaneta Tsoneva (Democratic Bulgaria - DB) commented that in the current parliament there is no majority for abolishing the paper ballot and it is necessary to combine the very strong points of the machine voting with creating barriers to the problems that exist in the counting of the paper vote. "That is why Democratic Bulgaria's proposal is to create counting centres", she added. "On the spot, in the counting centres, paper ballots will be counted from polling stations gathered from an area with between 20,000 and 30,000 voters", Tsoneva explained. In her words, this will break the link between the specific polling station and the result, which, in her opinion, would render the controlled vote meaningless because the vote brokers report their results at the polling station level.

Lena Borislavova, MP (Continue the Change - CC), expressed scepticism towards the creation of counting centres because "there the human factor remains, human error or deliberate action is not eliminated - on the contrary it gives the opportunity to a smaller circle of people to influence a larger number of ballots cast". CC proposes to restore machine voting and counting, while retaining paper ballots, which would, however, be counted and verified for validity immediately by a reader so that every vote is valid and counted. CC also proposes scanning the ID cards of every voter and a change to the Central Election Commission.

Tsveta Rangelova, MP (Vazrazhdane) said that so far the possibilities for greater manipulation of the elections with paper voting have been proven. In her words, the lack of possibility to continue the practice of mixed voting would make the creation of another parallel election administration - the so-called parallel election centres - meaningless. According to Vazrazhdane, members of the sectional election commissions (SECs) should have a minimum of secondary education. There is also a need to raise the professional requirements of CEC members. The party supports the introduction of professional election administration.

Regarding the preparation of the electoral rolls, Remzi Osman, MP (Democracy, Rights and Freedom - MRF) commented that active registration before elections is not bad, but expressed concerns about the addition of voters to the list, especially in small settlements. If it is not this problem - distrust in the authorities, active registration is very useful, he said.

Maya Manolova, Rise Up BG chair, said that the first problem with the Election Code is related to the counting of ballots and counting of votes in the CEC. Manolova said that the expectation of miraculously bringing 100,000 trained, honest, motivated CEC members is absurd. She added that trust in the machines has been shattered. "To think that we will bring back machine voting entirely is impossible. Another solution should be sought, such as the creation of counting centres so as to break the link between vote brokers", she said.