Bulgaria's President returns amendments to Election Code back to parliament

Bulgaria's President Rumen Radev signed a decree returning the law for amendments to the Election Code that was adopted by the 48th National Assembly on December 2, 2022, for a new discussion in the parliament.

The reasons state that in order for the changes to be legitimate, they must be introduced after public discussions. The President does not agree with the idea for mixing paper and machine voting.

"The legislative power is obliged to define a method of voting that treats voting by machine and paper ballot equally, while guaranteeing the secrecy of the vote. By introducing both methods of voting within the same section, the legislator creates conditions for violating the vote secrecy. Depending on the number of people voting one way or the other, their choice may be identified, which in itself leads to the mutual nullification of the two alternative ways of voting and denies the meaning of elections as an instrument of democracy," the president said. According to him, the conditions for providing access to the source code did not guarantee the security of machine voting.