Over 1,700 polling stations in the country are determined to be at risk of electoral violations. This is shown by analyses by the “Union for Fair Elections“, announced in the studio of “Your Day“ on NovaNews Zhoro Penchev.
“The analyses we have conducted show that there are 1,700 risky polling stations. We see that the activity in these sections is decreasing, based on several factors, one of which is the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs,“ he said.
According to him, similar trends have been observed in previous elections.
For his part, the chief expert “Security“ at the Center for the Study of Democracy Tihomir Bezlov raised the question of the effectiveness of the current actions against the bought vote. He recalled that back in 2014, a systematic attempt was made for the first time to identify risky sections based on election results.
“Yes, you can limit extreme incidents, but you can't do miracles,“ commented Bezlov. According to him, the reason is the presence of a stable contingent engaged in such practices.
“You detain him, hand him a warning protocol, but for these people the elections are a source of income“, he also pointed out.
Zhoro Penchev also drew attention to another key aspect of the election process - the work of the section election commissions. “The influence on the elections is not only through buying votes, but also through influencing members of the SIC during the counting. The role of the Ministry of Internal Affairs there is limited“, Penchev noted.