Has the Central Election Commission started preparations for the early parliamentary elections or will it wait for the presidential decree to set the date first? Which of the possible dates - October 13 or 20 is a good option for the commission in view of more time for preparation? Does the whole procedure of choosing a machine vote service company and new software start again? The topic in “The NOVA News Interview” commented the deputy chairman of the CEC, Rositsa Mateva.
"This is the seventh parliamentary election - from April 2021, which we will produce this fall. We are preparing because from Monday, after the third mandate was returned and unfulfilled - it is clear that sooner or later there will be early elections. But until the presidential decree comes out, we cannot make decisions. But that doesn't mean we don't prepare them. So we started cooking. At the same time, of course, we are still working on the previous election, which was on June 9. We are still considering the plan-account for the vote", Mateva explained.
She also commented on the issue of choosing the company that will deal with the machine voting. "When elections are scheduled, the Central Election Commission assigns activities that it cannot organize on its own. This is done with public procurement. That is, a public order for technical service, logistics and transport of the machines will be announced again. And who will appear and who will win - this is already a matter of desire on the part of the possible performers", she stressed.
In her words, in the elections for the National Assembly, "voting will be held everywhere in the world, where no less than 100 voters have voted in previous elections for the last 5 years". "These are the so-called automatic sections. One of the first decisions we will make is to determine the locations and countries where these will be found. Apart from that, where no less than 30 applications are submitted by Bulgarian citizens, an electoral section will be formed outside the country", Mateva pointed out.
She was categorical that "the CEC cannot have a preferred date for the vote". "But I want to draw attention to the fact that on October 20 there are already scheduled new partial elections. The results of the local vote on October 29 for the mayor of Omurtag Municipality and for many smaller town halls have been declared invalid.