Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2024 All Rights Reserved

Bulgarian court reinstates machine voting

Photo: Ani Petrova

During a five-hour-long session, the Supreme Administrative Court canceled the recent decision of the Central Election Commission that banned machine voting. CEC made the decision a day before the local elections. However, after the court's ruling, citizens will be able to exercise their right to vote by using a machine in the runoffs on Sunday.

Voting with only paper ballots in the first round was the result of MPs spreading information to SANS that the Deputy Minister of Electronic Government illegally filmed and transferred to a flash drive the process of generating the code used to verify the software of the machines.

In their reasons, the supreme judges wrote that the decision of the election commission when it comes to the runoff was illegal. There will be no cassation of the vote in the first round.

"In order to have machine voting in the second round, the certification procedure for the voting machines and software must be completed. We are waiting for the Minister of e-Government", the chair of the CEC, Kamelia Neikova, told the BNR.

"There are no obstacles to the certification procedure of the machines before the second round of the local elections", MP from PP-DB Bozhidar Bozhanov, commented. He added that the temporary parliamentary committee checking all facts and circumstances related to the security of machine voting will hold a meeting today with the chair of SANS, Plamen Tonchev.




Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

Rosen Zhelyazkov

Parliament rejects GERB-SDS cabinet proposal

After a heated debate, Parliament rejected the proposed GERB-SDS cabinet with Rosen Zhelyazkov as Prime Minister. It was supported by 98 MPs, with 138 voting against and two abstaining. Zhelyazkov, representing the first political force in Parliament,..

published on 7/3/24 4:42 PM

Poll: 63% of Bulgarians say increasing arms supplies to Ukraine is a 'bad idea'

Ukrainian optimism clashes with European scepticism ahead of the NATO summit, with divisions emerging over defence spending and how the war will end. These are the conclusions of a report based on a new survey by the European Council on Foreign..

published on 7/3/24 3:28 PM

People in northern Greece thank Bulgarian fire-fighters for their help

Under the program of the European Civil Protection Mechanism, 240 firefighters from 4 countries arrived in Greece to help their Greek colleagues, the Bulgarian Fire Protection Directorate has reported. Due to the high temperatures..

published on 7/3/24 11:53 AM