In the period of post-election licking wounds, based on my own experience, I will share my bewilderment at the vote counting procedures, which condemn nearly 50 thousand people to nearly 40 hours of sleepless, slavish, pointless work: three members (chairman, deputy chairman and secretary) from 13 thousand sections and several thousand more administration people in municipal and regional centers.
This was written on "Facebook" by Rumen Karamihalev.
Once again, our family went on the family train to the elections in Blagoevgrad region, Garmen municipality. I was the chairman in Dabnitsa, and my wife and daughter were members in Debren and Ognyanovo.
- Saturday, 9 am - we left Sofia, at noon we were in Garmen, they stayed in front of their sections, and I waited to receive the two sacks with materials for my section together with the deputy chairman and the secretary of my section.
- Saturday, 3 pm - we opened the section, by 6 pm together with 4 other members we prepared the section and headed for the night at Malamovata kashta in Gotse Delchev.
- Sunday, 6 am - we got up and left so that all three of us could be in front of the sections on time.
- Sunday, 7 am - I started the elections in our section, this time it was peaceful and quiet, at least for me it was the first time such peaceful elections happened to me, and many colleagues shared same.
- Sunday, 8 p.m. - we closed the section
- Monday, 12:30 a.m. - we finished counting the ballots, filling out the protocols, collecting the materials and headed in a small van under police guard to the municipality in Garmen
- Monday, 3:30 a.m. - two buses with all the section three members set off for the Blagoevgrad REC and at 6 a.m. we safely landed in a large parking lot to wait our turn to hand over the protocols and the sack with the ballots.
- Monday, 12:30 p.m. - in half an hour we handed over the protocols with the voting results to the REC, where computer administrators with sleep-red eyes copied the data from our paper ballots into the electronic protocols, which at the same time also provided a check for their correctness filling in.
- Monday, 3 p.m. - back on the buses to the municipal center in Garmen. I was lucky that they let me travel back to Sofia, because the other two colleagues from the three-member committee live there anyway.
- Monday, 6 p.m. - handing over the bags with the ballots to the municipality for storage and THE END.
From the opening of the section to the handing over of the ballots - 36 hours of sleeplessness, really intense work and nervous travel and waiting for tens of thousands of people, with criminal liability for possible offshoots. And it is so easy to save this enormous effort and time.
Checking the ballots and counting them usually takes at least 2 hours for a medium-sized section (up to 5-600 voters). Next comes the filling out of the results report, which is the biggest nightmare for the commissions because it contains hundreds of different and interconnected figures. Some time ago, the commissions did this work by hand with a sheet of paper and a calculator, and sometimes it took several hours. Then the data was written in pencil on a rough draft, then copied cleanly with a pen on a whiteboard, a total of at least an hour. Finally, up to 30-40% of the reports were submitted to the REC with errors, which had to be eliminated upon acceptance together with a bunch of equally sleep-deprived programmers.
And it could be done much easier and faster:
- The CEC has already developed and provided on its website an online form for the results report, which is a step in the right direction. Filling out the results in it takes about half an hour, and the form is self-checked and, if there are errors, provides instructions for their elimination. And when the form reports the correct completion of the protocol, it can be instantly sent to the REC / CEC with a simple electronic key or electronic signature, and the protocol itself can be printed on the spot and signed by the entire commission. There are printers in each section, and laptops - in each municipality, which can be locked with a separate access profile specifically for election day.
This requires very basic skills for working with the ready-made program on the laptop, which can easily be improved during the training for SIC members.
- The ballot bags and paper copies of the protocols with the results can be handed over to the municipality. Online administrators can help the commissions if there are difficulties with filling them out. By the way, the neighboring commissions helped each other anyway, because we had to wait anyway, because we travel together to the Blagoevgrad REC.
With normal work, everything could be finished around midnight, the results would already be available at the CEC, and the documents - duly handed over and archived in the municipal sections. And tens of thousands of members would be saved from a pointless trip to the REC, a long wait and nerves, and an even more pointless trip back to the MEC to hand over the ballot bags.
Within Bulgaria, this is about 1 million man-hours and several tens of millions of euros. I understand that, especially in small SICs, many people do it mainly for the money, but the current process is exhausting and disgustingly pointless, which does not help attract and retain decent people. With minimal changes, this could be drastically eased.
I have spoken to many colleagues from SICs, MECs and RECs and they all agree. The strangest thing is that I cannot see who could possibly benefit from such pointlessness, so it is most likely just carelessness. And this can be quickly fixed for the next elections in two simple steps.
Step 1: Each section should be provided with a laptop with a separate profile just for the elections and a form for filling out the protocol with an electronic signature, online and/or on a flash drive. After its correct completion, it is printed out and signed by the commission. Online help should be available if necessary.
Step 2: The SIC submits the protocols to the MEC online or on a flash drive, along with the signed paper copies and the sealed ballot bag.
Is it so complicated to do more for the next elections?!