Regardless of whether the voting is with paper ballots or by machines, the Central Election Commission (CEC) applies the principles of transparency, legality and trust in the electoral process, the commission announced.
They add that the request for tests of the machines contains proposals that go beyond the powers of the CEC. The procedures and deadlines are clearly spelled out in the Electoral Code and circumvention of legal norms is not permissible.
The CEC supports initiatives that contribute to ensuring the reliability and security of technologies in the electoral process, but only in strict compliance with the statutory order.
The commission reminds that the verification of the compliance of machines and software with regulatory requirements is carried out before each election by the competent authorities - the Ministry of Electronic Governance (MEG), the Bulgarian Institute of Metrology (BIM) and the Bulgarian Institute for Standardization (BIS). Parties, coalitions, observers and non-governmental organizations are always provided by the CEC with access to the process, to the source code and documentation, as specified in Art. 213a and Art. 213b of the Electoral Code. For each election, there is a report and decision of the competent authorities, which guarantee an institutional and expert assessment of the security and compliance with the law of the machines and software.
We recall that Bozhidar Bozhanov, co-chair of “Yes, Bulgaria" called on the CEC to organize public and expert testing of voting machines in order to put an end to speculation and technologically incorrect information surrounding the election process.