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Voting in the local elections will use old voting machines

Kamelia Neikova
Photo: BGNES

The Central Election Commission (CEC) has repeatedly proposed to develop new software for the machine voting so that there is no foreign involvement, but has not received a response from any institution. This was announced by CEC chairperson Kamelia Neikova during a parliamentary hearing on the reliability of machine voting. She explained that with the voting software acquired through a contract in 2021, not a single technical decision can be taken without the participation of its creator, Smartmatic International Holding.


The Chairperson of the CEC also said that in the local elections on October 29 this year there will be no new machines and voting will be done with the already purchased nearly 13,000 devices. According to her, they are stored in a private warehouse, because the Council of Ministers did not secure a state one, as required by the Electoral Code.

For the security of machine voting, a number of checks and tests are carried out, in addition, the Ministry of the Interior and the National Security Agency check all people with access to the warehouse where the machines are stored, and will work on their preparation and delivery to the election commission, Kamelia Neikova added.



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