Election monitoring

Ballots fall apart from the book; they are glued in a crook way or are smeared with glue. This is the result of a check-up of ballots, received at the District Election Commission in Smolyan at the request of an observer from ISI. Signal for the violation has been sent to CEC.

The ballots for the early Parliamentary Elections on May 12^th, Sunday, are made by "Multiprint" company, its printing house is based in Kostinbrod, and it is owned by Jordan Bonchev. According to information in the media in the middle of April, their estimated value is about 266 000 BGN (about 133 000 euro), with circulation of 7,000,000, which gives an  average price of a ballot of 4 stotinki (about 2 euro cents). The deadline for carrying out the contract is 3 days before the Election Day for all regional administrations, with the exception of the sections abroad, which should receive the ballots two weeks before the Election Day. The contractor was required to provide the ballots to the Regional Centers.

After the end of the 14-day period, giving opportunity to appeal the contract, with serious delay, on April 24^th, the printing of the ballots began. They include the names of all parties and coalitions, registered with the Central Election Commission. In larger constituencies, the length of the ballot is about one meter.

By law, you need to print a number of ballots, equal to the number of voters, with an extra margin of 10%. Several times, after requests by NGOs, CEC and the General Administrative Services refused to publish summary of the electorate, divided into sections, so it is not clear how the exact number of ballots corresponds with the number of voters. The excuse of the two institutions is that the information in the voters’ lists, pasted by the municipal administrations, gives enough clarification about the number of voters.