site.btaContinue the Change Submits Election Code Amendments

Continue the Change has submitted proposed amendments to the Election Code, Continue the Change MP Stoyu Stoev told reporters in Parliament on Wednesday.

The main proposals include restoring machine voting in full, with the results recorded through printed tally sheets, introducing a dedicated Multimember Constituency Abroad with four seats, digitizing voter lists, and introducing ID card scanners at polling stations, Stoev said.

He argued that concerns raised over the years about machine voting had been refuted by the Central Election Commission's 2022 analysis, which concluded that all discrepancies between electronically recorded results and manual counts were attributable to human error.

According to Stoev, Progressive Bulgaria had submitted similar proposals. He questioned why the governing party had nominated for chair of the State Agency for National Security (SANS) the person who headed the agency when it blocked machine voting ahead of the 2023 local elections.

According to Stoev, the absence of an Abroad constituency is due solely to a lack of political will, rather than any technical obstacles to its establishment.

On Tuesday, the governing Progressive Bulgaria coalition submitted its own proposed amendments to the Election Code. They include restoring machine voting in the form used in 2021, abolishing the Abroad constituency and removing the limit of 20 polling stations in countries outside the European Union.