On the day of reflection, a protest in front of the Central Election Commission after the election decision to vote only with a paper ballot. It was taken late last night after a report by DANS and two extraordinary presidential councils in the National Assembly. This caused the reaction of one of the political forces, which will contest the dropping of the machines in court.
Calls for protests on the day of reflection appeared on social media. And today at 12:00 people are gathering in front of the CEC. 10 years after the first #DANSwithme protests, people are coming together again under this slogan.
The CEC decided: We vote only with paper ballots in the local elections
Last night, hours after the start of the session, in the dark part of the day and only 35 hours before the elections, the Central Electoral Commission decided – the end of machine voting. The decision was supported by 12 CEC members, only two were against.
“The problem in this whole story is that the CEC did not turn out to be an arbiter of the pre-election process, but an institution that subordinates its decisions to the will of various political factors”, stated Tsvetozar Tomov, a member of the CEC.
“I do not agree! For the CEC, this was a very difficult decision, because I have always supported machine voting. But I think that the most important thing is to have confidence in the electoral process”, stated Kamelia Neikova, chairperson of the CEC.
PP-DB: We will appeal to YOU against the decision to cancel the machine vote
Less than 2 hours later, the Ministry of e-Governance issued the fitness certificate for the machines. According to them, on time, but it turned out to be too late. It was announced late in the evening at an emergency briefing. “All the tests of the machines were done, according to the time we had, because we received the machines on October 16, and we have 20 days to certify them,” said Deputy Minister Mihail Stoinov. According to DANS, it was Stoinov who threatened the integrity of the vote with his actions. Both he and the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of e-Governance were already questioned yesterday. However, they have not been charged. “I am not familiar with the DANS report, everything is documented, we have done numerous checks, I have no reason to sabotage this process,” Stoinov said.
Mateva on the machine solution: It’s not about the hash code, it’s about other actions
“The protected environment is under constant video surveillance, ask us if we have been recording, we have been recording for 24 hours, there is evidence,” said Angel Petrov, chief secretary.
The CEC’s response followed. “One of the arguments was that at the time of the decision, we had not received the document. The information that came from DANS about the actions of this deputy minister is quite surprising to me that this deputy minister was given the opportunity to sign the certificate at a late hour,” said Rositsa Mateva.
However, the reasons for the cancellation of the machine vote were not only those, nor were they related only to the recording of the hash codes.
“We are not talking about the actions related to the hash code, but about others that took place on October 25,” Mateva said.
What these actions are is a secret for now. The Ministry of the Interior did not have the DANS report yet. And the machines are already being transported back from the regional centers to the warehouse, assures NOVA the chief secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, Zhivko Kotsev.
Zhivko Kotsev: Late last night we received a letter to take the machines to the cargo center
“Late last night, we received a letter instructing us to return them to the center from where they were taken and with that to end the transportation issue,” said Kotsev.
As of today, all sections are under police protection.
From GERB, I called on Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov to announce what was written in the DANS report, since it was not classified as a secret.
There was also a reaction from the PP-DB, who announced last night that they will appeal the decision of the Central Election Commission to the Supreme Administrative Court.
“We submitted it within the framework of yesterday. We are receiving information that machines from all over the country are being prepared and are returning to Sofia, I urge them to wait for the development of the case. This report of the National Security Agency is not classified as secret,” stated Nikola Minchev.
2023-10-28 09:07:00
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