Electoral legislation should set stable rules and mechanisms to be the guarantor of democratic elections in Bulgaria, President Rosen Plevneliev said at a round table dedicated to problems and solutions regarding the electoral process in Bulgaria. The forum, initiated by the President, brought to 2 Dondoukov Boulevard representatives of parliamentary political forces, government institutions involved in the elections, electoral experts and representatives of organizations monitoring elections. President Plevneliev said that the Electoral Code an important positive step, which provide a clear regulatory framework for the holding of all elections in the country. It represented the launch and continuation of reform to consolidate the legal framework and governing of the conduct of elections.
The President said that the main topics for discussion were technology related to the holding of elections, doubts and attitudes in society about manipulation of voting, and institutional mechanisms to increase voter turnout, especially among young people. The President said that the vicious practice of vote buying was a challenge to democracy in Bulgaria. However, the problem could not be solved by changes to the electoral law and the judicial system has to find mechanisms and real solutions to combat forms of manipulation of the vote, he said.
The President said that he believed that the introduction of electronic remote voting would encourage voter turnout, especially among young people and disadvantaged people, but it would be necessary to establish the legal framework and mechanisms to ensure the secrecy of the vote. Electronic voting will be the primary method of voting in democratic societies, and in Bulgaria technical capability of this kind would be encouraged by the introduction of e-government, the President said.
Among the main issues raised during the discussion were the status of the Central Election Commission and increasing the transparency of its work, the establishment of a permanent election administration, the creation of a regional census centres and introduction of remote voting through the internet or dedicated devices.
Participants in the round table agreed on the need to create a permanent electoral administration and for the Central Election Commission to have its own budget and its own administration. Changes to legislation to be proposed include providing for the CEC to become a second-level office with a budget allocation and for administrative officials to be appointed to it in accordance with the Civil Service Act.
Experts and representatives of political forces taking part in the discussion said that they wer in favour of meetings of the Central Election Commission being public. Some of the proposals provide for meetings of the CEC to be broadcast live on the internet and for shorthand transcripts of these meetings, as well as those of any previous configurations of the Commission, to be posted on the CEC website. Other proposals envisage the creation of websites of local electoral commissions, to ensure that the minutes of their meetings are available publicly.
Most participants in the round table favoured the creation of regional counting centres through which to ensure complete openness and transparency in the counting of ballots. This practice has been successfully implemented in a number of other countries and is the only way that the count can be displayed outside the polling stations, it was pointed out during the discussion.
There are topical issues outstanding regarding the preparation of voters’ rolls and these being up to date. At the forum, the introduction of compulsory registration of the current addresses of citizens in the permanent electoral register was proposed. This register should be kept up to date by a permanent election administration, an active task for this administration from the outset. The electoral register should be publicly available, allowing access to voters’ status and feedback to the electoral administration, experts participating in the forum said. They called for establishing a public register of election monitors representing political forces, to avoid numbers being present at voting stations disproportionate to the numbers of votes cast at some voting stations in the country.
During the discussion, the question was raised of the status of local observers of the electoral process and the need to regulate their activities, on a basis equal to the status of international observers. According to the Institute for Public Environment Development, the status of local observers should be regulated in a separate chapter of the Election Code and they should be able to monitor all stages of the electoral process, including the printing of ballots.
Participants identified the functions of the media in election campaigns and how they are financed as a major to be resolved and one on which consensus is needed. Experts and representatives of major political forces said that there was a need to guarantee equal access of political entities to media time. A problem of principle that was highlighted was determining market-based pay for media time while there was public funding of political parties. According to experts, this created distortions in electoral contests to the detriment of smaller political parties.
Participants were unanimous that changes to electoral law must happen timeously, and no later than autumn 2012. This will ensure transparency of election rules and procedures for elections in the summer of 2013 and will open the way to increasing voters’ confidence in the political system.