The only tender submitted for the software of the election machines should be opened today, Kamelia Neikova said

Today at noon, the commission for the public procurement for the software of the machines must open the only tender submitted, said the chairman of the CEC, Kamelia Neikova, in the program “The Day Begins” on BNT. I very much hope that the negotiation with the contractor candidate will take place in an extremely short period of time, that a contract can be concluded and that the electronic bulletins can be prepared, said Neikova.

We are in a hurry mainly because of certification of compliance, which must be done by the Ministry of e-Government, the Institute of Metrology and the Institute of Standardization, added the CEC chairman. This order was announced on the day the elections were also announced – April 9, when the previous one was terminated – for the European Parliament elections. The plan in the CEC is already at the beginning of May to provide the software for authentication to the three institutions, so that they have enough time to work calmly and this 20-day deadline written in the Electoral Code for the verification of compliance is respected.

A total of 25 parties and 11 coalitions have registered for the elections on June 9, and one party and one coalition will participate only in the National Assembly elections, Kamelia Neikova said. The verification by GRAO of the signatures of 5 parties and 3 coalitions, which submitted their documents yesterday, the last day for registering the formations, is expected.

The draw for the numbers of the parties on the ballots will be on May 8, and the party and the coalition, which will participate only in the early parliamentary elections, will be after the parties listed in the two ballots, Neikova explained.

The Chairman of the CEC also said that voters cannot vote with a machine and a paper ballot at the same time, and they must exercise their right to vote by entering the polling station once.

Kamelia Neikova also reminded that the requirement to be seated applies to the European elections, but not to the parliamentary elections.

In order to be able to vote in the parliamentary elections, we must be over 18 years old, not serving a sentence of “imprisonment” and not placed under interdiction.

In order to be able to vote in the European elections, Bulgarian citizens must have a permanent and current address on the territory of Bulgaria or a permanent address in Bulgaria.

We may also have a current address in a country in the European Union. If the current address is in a country outside the EU as of March 9, 2024 – three months before election day, such a voter has no right to vote in the elections for members of the European Parliament, Neikova explained.

In the countries outside the European Union, you can only vote for parliamentary elections, the chairman of the CEC explained. She called on voters to check whether they appear in the preliminary lists to be announced by the municipal administrations on Monday, April 29.