2024-09-21 00:37:24
I believe that when everything happens in front of the public, publicly and openly, doubts about any manipulations disappear. This was stated by the Acting Minister of e-Government, Valentin Mundrov, at the Ministry of E-Government, where a procedure was held to draw the numbers of the voting machines for the elections on October 27, which will be certified for compliance with the upcoming early parliamentary elections.
The drawing of the numbers was random, public, and took place in the presence of acting Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev.
12,676 are the serial numbers of the machines that have been provided by the Central Election Commission to the Ministry of Electronic Governance, Minister Mundrov announced. A total of 10 of them were drawn at random, with three for the team of the Bulgarian Institute of Metrology, and the remaining seven for the team of the Ministry of Electronic Government.
As last time, as Minister of e-Government, I will directly monitor the work of the teams in the Ministry and guarantee that from our side the entire process, which is within the competences of the Ministry, will be transparent, in the interest of the citizens and in accordance with the laws of the state, assured Minister Mundrov. He specified that the authentication process is joint, with responsibilities distributed among four teams.
Team 1 is tasked with verifying the validity and authenticity of the documents on the voting machines. Its leader is engineer Mario Miladinov from the Bulgarian Institute of Standardization, the minister informed. Team 2 checks the research to the hardware configuration requirements of the devices. The leader is Zlatko Halvadzhiev from the Bulgarian Institute of Metrology. Team 3 has the responsibility to check and evaluate the functionality of the voting machines. Its leader is Georgi Bonchev from the Ministry of Electronic Government. Team 4 performs a security check of the information that is entered, processed, stored and output from the delivered type of technical device for machine voting. The head is Biserka Radeva from the Ministry of Electronic Government, Minister Mundrov informed, quoted by BTA.
Nearly four months ago, we again conducted this procedure on the numbers drawn on the voting machines that will go through the authentication process, the acting minister pointed out. He expressed hope that the next such event will be in no less than four years, because Bulgaria needs a regular and stable government. The official cabinet fulfills its duties conscientiously, as our main priority is the holding of fair, democratic and transparent elections, the official minister stressed.
The Ministry of e-Governance informed that a letter will be sent to the Central Election Commission requesting the technical voting devices whose serial numbers were withdrawn today.
The caretaker minister of e-governance said in response to a question after the numbers were drawn that both the Ministry of e-governance and the Council of Ministers are responsible for the technical provision of the election process. Neither in the ministry nor anywhere in the executive branch is there any expertise as to whether or not the paper for the election machines meets the requirements. This is within the prerogatives of the CEC, the minister emphasized. As far as we have started, the CEC has submitted to the printing house of the BNB the requirements as provided by the contractor, said Mundrov. As to whether there would be problems with the paper, he replied that there shouldn’t be, but that is still within the CEC’s prerogatives.
The Central Electoral Commission yesterday rejected claims that the paper used for machine voting did not meet the requirements of paper for printers. The position of the commission, distributed to the media, was on the occasion of the words of Veselin Todorov, executive director of “Siela Norma” AD, in the morning block of BNT, that the paper used for machine voting does not meet the requirements of the paper for the printers.
On September 17, the CEC announced that they had the assurance from the printing house of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) that the paper delivered by them met the requirements.
“Following changes in the Election Code in December 2022, the printing house of the Bulgarian National Bank was assigned to supply specialized paper on which to put additional protection, and which will be used for voting machines,” recalled Rositsa Mateva, spokesperson of the CEC. She emphasized that the CEC requested and received from “Siela Norma” as the supplier of the machines, as well as from “Smartmatic” as the manufacturer, the requirements for the paper with which the machines work. These requirements were immediately sent to the printing house of the BNB, she pointed out September 17.