The handover of the election protocols in Sofia was completed in record time. The representatives of the section election commissions from the three electoral districts handed over the ballot papers in the “Arena 8888 Sofia“ hall by around 04:00.
The first bus with members of a mobile section commission arrived about half an hour after the end of election day. There were only a few cases of defective machines, with the exception of Kardzhali, where the process was delayed for hours.
Report to the prosecutor's office about three votes
In a section in Sofia, a voter voted three times due to a problem with the machine. In the first two attempts, damaged ballots were printed, after which a new vote was allowed, although the votes had already been counted.
The chairman of the 24th REC, Yordan Topalov, described the case as a gross violation of the election rules. According to him, the printer on the machine folded the ballot, and the chairman of the section allowed a second vote twice.
„In practice, this records the vote in the machine's memory and in practice three votes were counted“, said Yordan Topalov.Four representatives of the 24th REC have checked the case and have filed a report with the prosecutor's office.
District commissions prepare final protocols
The chairman of the 23rd REC, Duchev, announced that the final protocol is being prepared by „Information Service“. After its completion, the results of the 23rd multi-mandate electoral district must be submitted to the Central Election Commission and published.
„With colleagues from 23 RECs, we managed to quickly process them“, said Duchev.The chairman of 25 RECs, Georgi Ralev, pointed out that compared to previous elections, the section commissions submit twice as many documents. Instead of one final report from a machine, three are now required.
„In the beginning, it was a bit difficult until the heavy documentation was sorted out“, said Ralev. He added that the explanatory campaign was weak, and the methodological instructions were changed at the last minute.