The CEC is setting an indicative budget of just over 10 million euros for repairing and maintaining voting machines before the upcoming elections. The contract with the contractor is expected to be signed by the end of next week.
The ultimate goal of the commission is for all 12,800 devices to be fully technically functional and prepared for the electoral process. This was announced by the commission's spokesperson Stoyanka Balova-Tsvetkova, BGNES reported.
The commitment made provides for the repair activities to be completed in full within one month, Balova indicated.
"We expect that next week, if the contract is signed, then by October 15 – This is the deadline by which we need to receive the machines completely ready in order to hand them over to the Ministry of Innovation and Digital Transformation for certification.“
The CEC emphasized that they work in close cooperation with the competent ministry and guarantee compliance with the deadlines for voting at home and abroad. In the event of a possible run-off vote abroad, the available machines will not be reprogrammed, but new devices will be sent.
The reason for the large-scale order is the number of defective machines accumulated in recent years that have been taken out of service without subsequent technical intervention.
“We have about 2,000 machines that are completely out of order, and in addition to the parts for them - mainly printers and displays, but there are also wheels, suitcases, machine covers - "We absolutely want to have all 12,800 machines by election day, so that the state can have them and include them in the election process," the Commission spokesperson added.
The commission explained that these are accumulated damages since 2021. The assessment of their condition was made based on a report by the Ministry of Electronic Governance, prepared after an official inquiry by the previous CEC.
In addition to the budget for repairing the devices, negotiations are also underway with the printing house of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) to provide paper ballots and rolls for the machine vote. “I think it was about 2 million euros. Again, there is a preliminary condition, the executor is the BNB, negotiations are pending and next week we will have a final result again.
According to the preliminary lists of the GRAO, about 6,645,000 citizens with permanent addresses currently have the right to vote, and the final data on voters will be announced in early October.