Our government and the public are again making a fundamental mistake that has long been denied by the Venice Commission - not to touch the Election Legislation one year before the elections. And whatever we touch should apply to the next elections, not to the ones that are coming. This was stated by Prof. Mikhail Konstantinov in the program "The Day Begins" on BNT.
"I have a hypothesis that a large part of the changes in the Election Code are made to isolate a large part of the voters. In the last 4 years of seven elections, the number of voters has permanently decreased by 740,000 on average in all elections. 2.6 million people permanently vote. My hypothesis is that the machines drove out some of the voters," Konstantinov pointed out.
The fact is that a large part of the voters cannot vote with machines. This myth about pensioners who use ATMs is totally untrue. 800,000 Bulgarians receive their pensions at post offices, he added. According to him, when given the right to choose, 60% choose to vote on paper.
Stoil Tsitselkov presented five main points that can be changed before this vote. "In the case of machine voting, we should use their full capacity - as a specialized device for electronic machine voting, with cryptographic codes, two flash drives, with all the protections that ensure a high standard. There should be working section election commissions. People we have seen on cameras who are being investigated - we should not see them again. There should be mandatory training and a competency test, at least for the chairman. Real responsibility - we need to see that the people who manipulated the vote are punished. The CEC should step into its role as a guarantor. And the fifth point - transparency of law enforcement agencies - to give regular briefings on what has been investigated and what has been discovered," he explained.
Prof. Mihail Konstantinov recommends sharply increasing the quality at the section commission level. And if possible, have one lawyer in each section.