Bulgaria’s parliamentary elections are going to be held on March 28, 2021, said the chairman of „Information Services“ Prof. Mihail Konstantinov for „BNT“.
The date was chosen for constitutional reasons because the previous elections were on March 26, 2017, and the first Sunday in which the 4-year term of parliament is going to expire is March 28. The possibility of machine voting would continue to be discussed, for reasons of hygiene.
„If during this time the wave of coronavirus-infected people is flowing, will you touch the screen of the voting machine?“
Konstantinov also added that it should be considered whether machine voting would be desired by the people and what they would do in such a case. If people did not even want to leave their homes, this would further complicate the election.
In this regard, the attempts of the Central Election Commission (CEC) to use remote electronic voting were also commented on. The professor sees a major obstacle in e-voting and that by mail (which existed in many countries), namely the secret of the vote. Unless the constitutional text is changed, such votes would not be possible.
Konstantinov expressed concern that we would not know whether the voter was not under pressure, whether he did not show someone his anonymous vote or whether someone else did not vote for him. The professor believes that there should be electronic voting, but the dangers must be well considered. Otherwise, vote buying would be even more successful. It would ensure that the people who were paid did vote for the person or party in question.
This was the peculiarity of the culture of voting in our country. The professor compared us to Switzerland, where most people voted by mail, but about 10% voted on the spot. Their identities were trusted by the polling stations, and neither the voters nor the inspectors allowed fraud.
