Constitutionalist Borislav Tsekov has sharply criticized the defenders of machine voting in Bulgaria, using as an occasion the recent dramatic events in Venezuela and the reaction of the technology tycoon Elon Musk. In a post on social networks, Tsekov contrasted trust in Musk with trust in the "native IT" around the PP-DB and President Rumen Radev.
Against the backdrop of reports of a large-scale US operation and the detention of Nicolas Maduro in early January, Tsekov emphasized a publication by Elon Musk on the X platform. The billionaire has shared allegations that the software of the machine voting company "Smartmatic" is compromised.
"The 'Smartmatic' software was developed in 2020, with the help of USAID to falsify election results", reads Musk's post cited by Tsekov.
It is important to note that Musk is actually reposting information from an anonymous account with the name "The SCIF", which raises questions about the original source of these serious allegations. Musk himself has been waging an open war with USAID since 2025, when he called the agency a "criminal organization" and "ball of worms" in his attempts to reform or close it.
Tsekov used the international scandal to bring the topic to Bulgarian soil, directly attacking his political opponents.
"However, the native IT people around PP-DB and Radev repeat like a Tamagotchi that there is no problem, because that is how it seemed to them", the expert commented.
He poses an ultimate question to his audience, seeking to discredit the machine vote in our country through association with "Maduro":
"Who are you inclined to trust as a competent, accurately informed and reliable source on the topic: Elon Musk and the American IT people around him, who are alarming us, or the native IT people around PP-DB and Radev, who say that from 'Iskaro deeper there is no' and they were 'making a fuss' with the machines?"
The connection between "Smartmatic" and election manipulation is a topic that periodically appears in conspiracy narratives, but so far no judicial evidence has been presented of a global conspiracy funded by the US government agency USAID. On the contrary, "Smartmatic" is suing media outlets for billions of dollars for defamation that spread similar claims after the 2020 US elections.
However, the words of Musk, who has enormous influence on social media and is in open conflict with the current USAID administration, give new impetus to doubts about voting technology.