The Public Council of the CEC appealed to the media service providers and to sociological agencies to comply with the letter and spirit of the Electoral Code - art. 204 and Art. 205, and not to distribute and publish data from sociological surveys, the so-called exit poll, during the election day, before 20:00, in any form.
This is stated in an address of the Public Council to the Central Election Commission to "Alpha Research", "Gallup International Balkan", "Trend", "Market Links", to the media, the Bulgarian Sociological Association, broadcast BTA.
According to the texts of the Electoral Code (item 15 of Additional Regulations), the ban also applies to profiles on social networks such as Facebook, X (Twitter), Viber, YouTube, Tik-Tok, etc. of media service providers, the Public Council to the CEC recalls.
Conducting sociological surveys on election day is regulated in the Electoral Code and is carried out only by CEC-registered agencies. In this sense, the responsibility for providing intermediate data lies also on the registered sociological agencies, and not only on the media publishing them, the Public Council notes.
The Public Council calls the four agencies registered in the CEC, namely "Alpha Research", "Gallup International Balkan", "Trend" and "Market Links" to publicly assume a common "gentlemanly" commitment, stating that they undertake not to provide their data at times and in ways that suggest or permit violation of the law. If such a commitment is made, the predicted results published 20 hours ago in electronic media or social networks, “rankings“ etc. under will be a priori discredited as unreliable, since the public will know that they cannot be the product of real exit polls conducted by the responsible sociologist professionals registered with the CEC and will ignore them, adds the Public Council to the CEC.
Observers and analysts have repeatedly noted the influence of illegally published forecast results during election day on the behavior of voters, including mobilization of the bought or controlled vote was also reported, precisely in the last hours of the election day. In today's world of a 24-hour continuous flow of information, the Public Council believes that for the short interval of 13 hours, which is the duration of the election day, the right to information can and should yield to the right to a free and unencumbered choice of voters for the management of the country.
"Vote buying and selling are crimes and money is not everything. On June 9, 2024, let's be silent until 8 p.m., the Public Council to the CEC declares.
The Public Council of the Central Election Commission includes representatives of Bulgarian non-governmental organizations monitoring the elections in the country. It was created on the basis of Article 55 of
According to the Electoral Code and its Rules, it is an advisory body to the CEC with the main objective of helping to ensure transparency, democracy and fairness in the electoral process. The Public Council works independently of the electoral administration by drawing up opinions, analyses, recommendations and organizing discussions, round tables and public events related to electoral theory and practice. Its members do not receive remuneration for their work.
We remind you that the Central Election Commission has sanctioned the media for publishing data from the exit polls before the announcement of the end of the election day. An act is drawn up for media violations. According to the Election Code (EC), the sanctions that are foreseen for announcing the results of sociological surveys and polls before the announcement of the end of the election day are a fine or a pecuniary sanction.