site.btaIn Parliament, Working Group Discusses Proposed Election Code Revisions

A working group met here on Tuesday with officials of the Central Election Commission (CEC) and government ministries, NGO representatives and experts to discuss proposed amendments to the Election Code ahead of their second reading by Parliament.

The working group was set up by the parliamentary groups to help consolidate into a single piece of draft legislation the five amending bills that the legislature adopted on first reading in early January 2025. The principal proposals were to introduce vote counting commissions, to purchase ballot scanning machines, and to switch to machine voting only.

Highlights on Tuesday's discussions:

Daniel Stefanov (Centre for Election Studies at New Bulgarian University): An extra 4,000 - 6,000 persons must be hired at the vote counting centres. The parties should consider whether this number should be offset against the number of voting section commission members. Around 1% of the ballots have been found mismarked by the expert witnesses commissioned by the Constitutional Court. The issue on which they are focusing is exaggerated. 

CEC Chair Kamelya Neykova: A vote counting centre has been experimented in Boboshevo, and later on scanning devices were used to count votes on an experimental basis in Sofia. It was determined that a counting commission is suitable for small municipalities. The count began only after the arrival of the last bag of ballots, which delayed considerably the work of the commission. If the ballots are commingled and there are irregularities in a particular voting section, a subsequent judicial review would be impossible.

CEC member Tsvetozar Tomov: After the presidential elections, scanners were used for recounting in five voting sections and then a comparison was made with the manual count. The most substantial issue was the rather peculiar way in which the scanners reacted to the Election Code requirement to vote by marking the ballots with an "X" or "V". If the mark leaves the square even by a millimitre, the ballot would be found invalid. Other ballots were invalidated because they were not properly detached from the book. When scanned, the number of invalid ballots increased compared to the invalid ballots when counted manually. 

CEC Deputy Chair Rositsa Mateva: When considering the type of scanners to be purchased, account should be taken of the different size and length of the ballots for the different types of election.

Lawyer Valya Gigova: The first thing to be decided is the kind of voting: by paper, by machine, or mixed. Next, if the paper ballots are kept, it should be decided whether they will continue to be counted by the section commissions or will go to counting centres. Scanning devices make sense for counting if ballot papers will be used.

Anna Yaneva MP of GERB-UDF, Chair of the Committee on Constitutinal and Legal Affairs: The proposed amendments to the Election Code make it clear that the ruling majority does want paper ballots to be scrapped. Money for scanning devices cannot be budgeted this year. 

Alexander Rashev MP of There Is Such a People (TISP): The TISP Parliamentary Group stands by its opinion about the need of counting commissions. 

Maya Dimitrova MP of BSP-United Left: Everyone should be able to exercise their right to vote by paper or by machine. It is absolutely impossible to segregate sections for machine voting only and for paper voting only, considering the electoral rolls. 

Vanya Vasileva MP of Democracy, Rights and Freedoms - DRF: Bulgarian voters cannot and should be denied the right to vote by paper ballot. The paper ballot is a document of sorts. The DRF Parliamentary Group has moved that, once a voter has cast a ballot, it should be counted by a scanning device. If the ballot is invalid, the machine would reject it and the voter can ask for a new ballot and make sure that it is valid.

Stoyu Stoev MP of Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria: The counting centres depend on what type of voting would be opted for.

Hristo Rastashki MP of Morality, Unity, Honour: The parties should reconsider the proposal for setting up counting centres because the chaos may increase. It would be easier to switch to machine voting only.

Election expert Mihail Konstantinov: Bulgarian voters prefer paper in a proportion of three to one. Judging from world practice, introducing a new manner of voting and vote tallying takes about ten years.