Another 300-500 Voting Machines Needed for Bulgarian Elections

The new chairman of the Central Election Commission, Kamelia Neykova, hopes the CEC will not be held hostage between battles in parliament.

"The CEC cannot have a bad image, no matter who gives the valuations. The society will give its valuation on our work. I am uncomfortable with the way everyone justifies themselves with the CEC for the achieved results," she said in the morning block of BNT.

According to her, machine voting is a good solution, although it hides its risks.

"There are provisions in the law that guarantee that if there is a problem with machine voting, it should continue with paper voting.There will be printed paper ballots, as many as the number of voters," Neykova said.

According to her, a serious challenge is the logistics, the delivery of the machines abroad, as well as their technical support.

"The condition of the voting machines is yet to be established, the contract with the supplier has some problems, as far as I understand from the statements of a CEC spokesman - the price has not been paid yet, I do not know if the property has been transferred to the state. The contract is for the purchase of 9,600 machines, they were provided for the elections on April 4," Neykova said.

According to her calculations, another 300 to 500 machines will be needed to provide all the polling stations.

The Electoral Code allows a public procurement to be completed in a shorter time, and it will probably be clear by the end of the week if the decree appointing the CEC is issued tomorrow, she said.

Neykova also said that it would not be necessary to copy the paper protocol from the machine, which will significantly facilitate the process after the end of the voting.

She clarified that the quarantined patients with Covid-19 will be able to vote where they are quarantined, as well as will be able to apply for voting under quarantine on the day of the vote.

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