Prosecutors: Illegal Ballots Were Ready for Shipping Ahead of Bulgaria Vote

Bulgarian prosecutors have confirmed that the 350 000 illegal ballots that were seized from a printing house on the eve of Bulgaria’s general election were ready to be dispatched.

The prosecutors have thus once again refuted the owner of the printing house – a municipal councilor from the center-right GERB party – who had claimed that the ballots were “printing spoilage.”

On Wednesday, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Borislav Sarafov briefed reporters on the illegal ballots scandal that shook the country ahead of the crucial vote.

He observed that the seized ballots were accompanied by tags showing their intended destinations. The tags included the cities of Blagoevgrad, Haskovo, Varna, Kardzhali, Kyustendil, Pazardzhik and Shumen, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (ballots intended for Bulgarian voters abroad).

“This means that we had “printing spoilage” for each and every electoral district,” Sarafov noted.

Prosecutors have also revealed that authorities used some of the illegal ballots on at least three occasions. A total of 535 of them were dispatched to the Sofia district of Triaditsa, while 2 000 ballots were dispatched to Sofia Province and another 320 ballots were used as samples by the Central Electoral Committee.

The 350 000 illegally printed ballots, allegedly, were to be used to manipulate the vote in the early general elections on Sunday, May 12, to turn the results in favor of the centrist Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB.

The questionable ballots were seized on May 10 from the premises of Multiprint, the company commissioned by the government to print the official election ballots. The company had to print and deliver all ballots to the district administrations by May 8.

Bulgarians went to the polls on May 12 to elect a new Parliament after the center-right government of former GERB Prime Minister Boyko Borisov resigned on February 20 amid nationwide anti-poverty and corruption protests.

The election campaign was accompanied by serious scandal involving alleged unauthorized deployment of special surveillance equipment during Tsvetan Tsvetanov's term in office as Interior Minister.

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