site.btaVazrazhdane Party Calls for Abolition of Paper Ballot Voting

The Vazrazhdane party is calling for the abolition of paper ballot voting, Vazrazhdane Deputy Floor Leader Petar Petrov told journalists on Tuesday.

Petrov said that Vazrazhdane proposed the change as early as November 2024, calling for exclusively machine voting in all polling stations, combined with protocol-based and manual counting of voter-verified paper records. He added that these proposals are part of amendments to the Election Code that the parliamentary Legal Affairs Committee is set to review on Wednesday. According to him, the party will seek support for the changes from all parliamentary groups.

Petrov also said that Vazrazhdane has proposed removing numbers from ballots and requiring candidates to be listed in alphabetical order. The party is also proposing the introduction of non-public video recording on election day, to be accessed only in the event of investigations into irregularities. Other proposals include public video recording of the handover, receipt and processing of polling station protocols. According to Petrov, greater transparency would lead to fairer elections.

The party is proposing to increase the membership of the Central Election Commission (CEC) to 25 members, Petrov said, noting that the current CEC’s term expires at end-April. Vazrazhdane also proposes removing the party-based principle in appointing CEC members. Under the proposal, members could be nominated and elected proportionally according to the composition of parliamentary groups following the most recent parliamentary elections. The party also proposes shortening CEC members’ terms and updating the Commission’s composition after parliamentary elections. Petrov also said that Vazrazhdane currently has no representatives in the CEC.

Petrov stressed that many of the draft amendments to the Election Code seek to introduce machines for scanning paper ballots, but Vazrazhdane opposes retaining paper ballots in any form. According to him, this would not prevent election-related crimes. He said that the reintroduction of paper voting in early 2023 by GERB, BSP and MRF has led to widespread legal violations, abuses, ballot stuffing, ballot alterations and fraud. If machine voting were introduced in its purest form, along with counting of the paper receipts, the state would have the technical capacity to provide voting machines, but not scanning devices, he argued.

Petrov added that changes to the Election Code should not be made on an emergency basis just two months before elections, but well in advance. Unfortunately, this was not done, he said, noting that the ruling majority has urgently submitted Election Code amendments for review on Wednesday. He added that it remains unclear when the amendments to be discussed will take effect.

On Wednesday, the parliamentary Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs is set to review at second reading a consolidated draft bill amending the Election Code, based on bills adopted at first reading and submitted by MPs including Kostadin Kostadinov (Vazrazhdane), Toshko Yordanov (There Is Such a People), Atanas Zafirov (BSP – United Left), Nadejda Iordanova and Kiril Petkov (Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria), among others. Committee members will also review at first reading a separate draft bill proposing fully machine-based voting, submitted by Nadejda Iordanova and a group of MPs.