Deputy E-Government Minister says making video of voting machines' vulnerability test was his obligation, disproves allegations of foul play

In a statement sent to the news media on Monday, Deputy Electronic Governance Minister Mihail Stoynov rejected accusations that by making a video of a compliance test of randomly chosen voting machines he undermined the security of machine voting, and said that doing what he did was his official obligation. 

That Stoynev made a video of the test transpired in a memo to the State Agency for National Security presented to Parliament and the political leaders on October 27, a couple of days before the local elections. That led to a decision by the Central Election Commission to eliminate voting machines from the October 29 elections, causing an outrage among Bulgarians and in some political circles, notably the Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria coalitions which have always been passionate advocates of machine voting. They contested the decision before the Supreme Administrative Court and the matter is now in its hands.

Stoynov says in his statement that he was put by Electronic Governance Minister Alexander Yolovski in charge of coordinating and controlling the process of certifying the voting machines - or that part of it that is within the Ministry competence. "Doing a video is a mandatory part of the machine authentication procedure. No part of this process is secret," he says.

He goes on to explain that the internal rules of the Electronic Governance Ministry require that photos and video be enclosed with the documents certifying that the machines have been tested and fit for use in the elections. "The video I made on October 25 do not contain any parts of source code, other codes, private keys, certificates, or any sensitive or secret information. Just test software on a test machine."

Stoynov further says that before the cameras in the room where the tests were done, he transferred the video and photos on an official memory stick protected with a password, and handed it to the head of the certification team. "After the transfer, I deleted all photos and videos from the phone. SANS can confirm that as they have the phone after I gave it to them so they can establish the facts."

In his words, "none of the created material can be installed on the voting machines, as it is not signed with the CEC key, but with a test key generated in the Ministry for test purposes, on test machines".

Stoynov says that the SANS memo of October 26 "is full of unverified and false allegations about his work on the final testing of the machines before their certification".

"SANS suggests that I took out sensitive information on a memory stick and that is a lie that is not even technically possible. Claims that I recorded the source code 'so I could look at it and play with it' are not only false (easily verifiable from the video) but also practically impossible - the source code is over 500,000 lines of text that cannot be captured on camera," says Stoynov.

He says that all actions described in the SANS memo took place in the official Electronic Governance Ministry room for certification of the voting machines. "The room is equipped with surveillance cameras and an access control system. I have only worked in the presence of the members of the working group and not for a moment have I been in 'warehouses and dark rooms', or in rooms holding machines that are designed for actual voting in elections. The Electronic Governance Ministry never had a machine that could actually be used for voting. We have six test machines which cannot be voted on."

Stoynev says that contrary to SANS' allegations, nobody in the room told him not to record the process on video. He also says that SANS did not contact him or asked him any questions before they sent their memo to the state institutions. "I am not aware of any check they may have done in the Electronic Governance Ministry."

He claims that SANS never reacted when identical processes were used and identical situations occurred during previous elections.