Monitoring of Presidential elections 2016

Project Objectives: Support for democratic, transparent and fair elections for President and Vice president, achieving a deterrent effect on the possibility of violating the democratic elections and increasing citizens’ participation in the electoral process.

The monitoring follows three stages: analysis of the electoral legislation, media monitoring, and observation of the Election Day. The first stage of the project includes preparing a report with analysis of the electoral legislation in the context of the recent changes in the Electoral Code.

By this media monitoring the project aims at observing and analyzing the media environment in Bulgaria in the context of the upcoming elections for President and Vice president. It is divided into two main parts - quantitative monitoring and analysis of the media coverage of the main candidates, and analysis of the key messages of politicians and political parties that reach Bulgarian citizens through the media in the country. The quantitative monitoring traditionally starts one month before the start of the campaign /October 6^th/ and will continue until the day after the elections /November 7^th/.

By monitoring of the Election Day, the project aims at increasing citizens’ participation in the electoral process and at achieving a deterrent effect on the possibility of violating the democratic elections. Possible violations in the electoral process should receive the necessary publicity and they should be reported to the responsible authorities and institutions. For this purpose we will use the already established network of civil observers in all constituencies of the country.