Parliament has approved the final amendments to Bulgaria's Electoral Code, restoring mandatory machine voting in larger polling stations and introducing a series of other changes that will apply ahead of the country's upcoming elections.
Under the new rules, polling stations with more than 300 registered voters will once again use machine voting exclusively. Smaller polling stations will continue to rely on paper ballots, returning to a system briefly introduced in 2021. Once voting is completed, section election commissions will determine the results using the protocol printed by the voting machine, while conducting a control count of the verification receipts.
The amendments also overhaul the decision-making process within the Central Election Commission (CEC). The previous requirement for a two-thirds majority has been abolished and replaced with a simple majority. The proposal, submitted by We Continue the Change (PP), received the backing of the ruling Progressive Bulgaria (PB).
The practical effect of the change is that decisions in the 15-member commission will now require at least eight votes in favor. Previously, the two-thirds threshold was calculated based on the number of members present at a meeting.
