site.btaCaretaker Cabinet Wants to Optimize Process of Authenticating Voting Machines - Innovation Minister

The caretaker government is determined within its competence to ensure a transparent and fair electoral process, said caretaker Innovation and Growth Minister Rosen Karadimov in Burgas on Friday. "The elections are organized by the Central Election Commission (CEC), while we provide the material and technical preparation for the elections," he underscored.

Karadimov arrived in the seaside city for a working meeting with the regional governors from the Southeast Region and the directors of the territorial units of the Civil Registration and Administrative Services General Directorate (GRAO). The aim is to discuss the preparation of the elections, as well as the coordination between the regional governors and the territorial units of GRAO.

"Yesterday [Thursday], we made a very serious proposal to the CEC to check the electoral process, especially the machine voting. I hope that at the meeting with the CEC on Monday we will get positive answers to the questions we ask, because I say again, this is about increasing the trust in our electoral process", Karadimov noted.

He pointed out that video surveillance will be the next step of the electoral process that his Ministry will pay serious attention to. "There, the responsibility is entirely with the Ministry of Electronic Governance, so we will make every possible effort to ensure full transparency of the election process", Karadimov emphasized.

"We want to optimize the process of authentication of the machines, but we want the law to also include the authentication of the software and the flash memories of the respective machines", he said, adding that it is not normal for the supplier of the security seals to also be the company that installs them. "We want someone else to be the supplier of the seals, the seals to have numbers, each machine to go with a numbered seal, and the number of the seal to be recorded in the handover protocol between the supplier and the district election commission", he noted. 

Asked to comment on reports of registrations of many people at one address, the minister indicated that it was established that these were cases and practice from the 1970s and 1980s. "Government actions must be within the law, so this situation cannot be changed administratively, unless the law allows it. However, we have assurances that such a practice is not possible at the moment", said the Minister.