site.btaVoting Machines to Be Moved Friday Evening, Will Reach Polling Sites on Saturday

A voting machine was demonstrated to journalists here on Thursday at the warehouse where the devices are kept.

On Friday evening, the voting machines will be transported to municipalities countrywide and are expected to reach the voting sections on Saturday, Central Election Commission (CEC) Deputy Chair Rositsa Mateva said during the presentation.  

All machines have been sealed after preventive maintenance. Each is checked by civil servants provided by the Electronic Government Ministry. After the check, the devices are verified, packed in a suitcase, palletized and shipped. No problems have been detected so far with the machine, and certified software has been installed in each one, Mateva said. Replying to a question, she said that all machines will be checked now because a sufficient number of civil servants is available, whereas before the check was limited to some 30% of the voting devices.

On Saturday, an advance test run of the devices will be performed to make sure they are serviceable and a diagnostic report will be printed out. If any of the machine fails on Saturday, a new attempt to switch it on will be made on Sunday. The CEC Deputy Chair recalled that the machines must be plugged in all the time.

The competent constituency election commission may decide on discontinuing machine voting only if there is a failure that the Ciela Norma technician is unable to repair. While the technician is handling the device, voting will continue by paper ballot. When the constituency commission adopts its decision, paper-ballot voting only will proceed, Mateva explained.

"Preventive maintenance is the responsibility of the machines' owner, but whenever we award a public procurement contract for machine voting operations for particular elections, preventive maintenance is the first thing that the contract winner does," the CEC Deputy Chair pointed out.

Electronic Governance Minister Georgi Sharkov, who also attended the event, said that the first to be shipped will be the machines destined for the outlying parts of the country. Everything is going according to plan, arrangements have been made for the machines' installation, and staff are working three-shirt rotations. Each machine is checked for being loaded with the original code, after which it is packed and sealed and the seal is entered in a special record. In Sharkov's words, the machines and the video monitoring traffic are not at risk of hacker attacks. At the October 2024 elections, some 98.5% of the voting sections livestreamed their counting and tallying, and after the devices were delivered and the memories were downloaded, the coverage reached 99.5%, he pointed out.

The seal must be open only after the close of the polls so that the section election commission can retrieve the memory sticks, Mateva explained.

"Information Services JSC is responsible for the video monitoring logistics, and they tell us that all devices have been tested and function," she said. In settlements where internet connectivity is bad, the devices will record the proceedings and where livestreaming is unavailable, their recording will be downloaded. The CEC Deputy Chair recalled that the entire process of vote counting, tally sheet completion, packing the stationery and its placing in sacks must be videoed.

During the demonstration, attending authoritized representatives of GERB-UDF unscrewed part of the machine. They argued that other devices may be inserted into the machines, the battery life is not longer than 30 minutes, the software is obsolete and its usability expired in 2025.

Bozhidar Bozhanov, who represented the Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria at the demonstration, said that he did not see any problem with the machines.

Mateva told those claiming that there are issues with the machines that their conduct is preconceived and that they are calling into question the activity of the independent State body managing the elections and the work of the State experts who check the machines. "You are calling the entire election process into question quite deliberately because you insinuate that somebody can tamper with the machines," the CEC Deputy Chair added. 

Sharkov pointed out that once the software is installed in the machine, it is sealed and that even if other memory sticks are inserted in it, it will not switch on. "Encryption is used to write the software, each machine needs special cards to be unlocked, and once sealed, it is tamper-proof," he added. In his words, the machines will be transported to the voting sections under guard and will remain under guard until the opening of the polls.