Election day for the runoff began at 07:00 throughout the country, but problems with the power supply and machine voting were reported in the first hours. In some polling stations, the machines did not work immediately, while in other places they switched entirely to paper ballots, Central Election Commission spokesperson Stoyanka Balova announced.
“There is no power in four polling stations in Malo Konare, in Silistra, voting has already taken place with paper ballots in two polling stations, as well as in the village of Dobrovnitsa, Pazardzhik region“, said Balova.
There is also a power outage in the villages of Most and Chereshnitsa in Kardzhali region. There, the voting machines are running on batteries, the CEC spokesperson specified.
The most changes in the composition of the polling station election commissions were made in the 24th district in Sofia. From Wednesday to election day, nearly 60 people were replaced. There are also shifts in Vratsa, Gabrovo, Lovech, Pleven, Plovdiv, Razgrad, Haskovo and Targovishte.
According to Stoyanka Balova, the changes in the composition did not prevent the election day from starting on time and normally. No complaints or signals were received by the first briefing of the CEC.
The CEC has sent new instructions to the municipalities and district election commissions after cases of incomplete machine voting in the first round of the presidential and vice-presidential elections were identified.
Voters are instructed not to pull out the receipt and not to remove the card in advance before the voting process has ended. Detailed step-by-step instructions should also be posted in the polling stations to facilitate the work with the machines.