Bulgarian Election Commission issues new machine voting rules

The Bulgarian Central Election Commission (CEC) has issued new methodological guidelines for the upcoming presidential elections on October 25. Under the new rules, machine-printed slips will no longer be stamped, as they are classified as “control receipts” rather than official ballots. These receipts will be placed in dedicated boxes labeled “Control receipts from the machine” and will serve as a transparency measure, though the official results will be based on the machine-printed protocols.

Concerns have been raised regarding the technical readiness of the voting machines. While the CEC states that all machines have been repaired or diagnosed, experts have questioned the cause of previous printing defects, debating whether the issue stems from software, hardware, or printer components. Although the Bulgarian National Bank provides paper that meets Smartmatic’s technical requirements, some officials have called for more transparent diagnostics of the 12,000 machines.

In the event of machine failure, local election commissions will decide when to suspend machine voting and must notify the district commission. In stations with two machines, voting via machine will only cease if both devices fail. Notably, the current guidelines do not specify a threshold for the number of failed attempts before switching to paper ballots, nor do they allow for re-voting if a machine prints an incomplete or blank receipt.