A new case has arisen regarding machine voting, and only in Sofia. About a dozen cases were reported to the Central Election Commission (CEC) in which voters wanted to vote for a district mayor and a municipality mayor, but the machines printed only one ballot instead of two. So far, there is no answer to the mystery. The CEC will seek one from Ciela Norma, the private company responsible for the proper functioning of the voting machines.
The deputy head and spokesperson of the commission, Rositsa Mateva, was the first to signal this. She said that there were a dozen reports of voters who marked candidates in both types of elections, but the machines printed the ballot for only one – for mayor of a region. Mateva noted that this is too strange, because in such a vote, the ballot for mayor of the municipality must be printed first.
Voters who have fallen into this situation have been refused re-voting by the sectional commissions. Moreover, when they consulted the Ciela call center, which is supposed to provide guidance in case of problems and irregularities, they were told that the voice would be reported through the machine’s flash memory anyway. Mateva reminded that after the latest amendments to the Electoral Code, votes are counted only through the machine ballot. “The votes of several people in Sofia have already been lost, and for the mayor of a municipality,” stated the spokesperson of the CEC.
Her colleague Tsvetozar Tomov reported on two more cases in which the opposite happens – the ballot for the mayor of the municipality is printed, but not for the mayor of the region. He said he directed the sectional committees to cancel the ballot papers as erroneous. “Please?! Cancel machine ballots!” Rositsa Mateva exclaimed. An argument between the commissioners ensued, from which nothing was heard, as CEC head Kamelia Neikova quickly turned off the microphones, a regular practice when commission members quarrel over something. Finally, they unanimously decided that they would appeal to Siella for an urgent explanation.
Stay tuned for further developments in the case.
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