The machine will not solve the problem with the competence or incompetence of the election administration. This was stated in the program "Panorama" on BNT by the new chairman of the CEC Georgi Horozov.
"The prepared election administration is the one that can solve the issue with machine voting. It was on this occasion that the EC planned to introduce a training unit for the administration that will conduct the elections."
There will be machines in the sections with more than 300 voters, and in the smaller ones, voting will be done with paper ballots.
"I do not see a serious risk in machine voting in the preparation that has been made, in the changes to the law that actually introduced real machine voting, and in fact returned the process to the state in which this machine voting was introduced in 2021. The risks, if there are any, of course, there is a risk with every machine. There is even such an indicator of the reliability of the machine, which is a general principle, is primarily technical."
According to Khorozov, the main possible risk is technical. If a machine stops working, voting in the relevant section will continue with paper ballots. According to him, the right to vote is guaranteed in all cases.
"It is undeniable that the machine, no matter how well maintained, may not participate in the voting for technical reasons at one stage of the election process, but otherwise with machine voting, in the way it is regulated in Bulgarian legislation and in the way this election will be held, there are sufficient guarantees, first of all, for a system that is difficult to succumb to external influence and in which sufficient guarantees have been taken to ensure the clean, impartial, faithful, clear and honest vote of the voters."
Horozov explained that the introduction of the software into the machines is carried out publicly.
Georgi Horozov, Chairman of the Central Election Commission: “The very introduction of the software into these machines is carried out publicly and it by three independent institutions. On the one hand, this is the Ministry of Innovation and Digital Transformation. On the other hand - the Bulgarian Institute of Metrology. In third place - the Bulgarian Institute of Standardization. And, of course, all this takes place in the presence of observers, voters, journalists, maximum publicity. On the other hand, the code has provided that the machine, if it does not work for reasons that are external and not due to any peculiarities, actually stops and is continued by the voters in the relevant section with paper voting. As the code has provided that in each section where machine voting is envisaged, paper ballots are also delivered, equal in number to the number of voters in this section. That is, the right to vote is guaranteed in all cases."
Following the decision of the Constitutional Court and the problems with counting votes, the latest changes to the Election Code return the actual machine voting, in which the vote is recorded in the machine's memory, the CEC chairman also stated.
Georgi Horozov, CEC chairman: “The principle of machine voting and its peculiarity is that with machine voting there are no invalid votes, such as there are with paper voting.“
However, machines cannot solve the problem of bought or manipulated votes. According to Horozov, the CEC has no authority to deal with the prevention of electoral crimes or to try to control the way in which voters are influenced.
Georgi Horozov, Chairman of the CEC: “What the CEC can do in connection with the implementation of the Electoral Code is, firstly, to explain the voting rules very well, secondly, to explain the guarantees for the security of the vote very well and, thirdly, of course, within its powers to impose sanctions.“