On 23.10.2011 in Bulgaria local and presidential elections took place that violated many Bulgarian electoral laws and regulations. The elections were monitored by a group of German observers invited by Heirich-Böll-Striftung and Zelenite. Their findings were presented to a Bulgarian court and accepted for further investigation. The findings can be summarized as follows:
1) The secrecy of the ballot (as, by law, provided by § 2 of the elections act) was violated in the whole country, through ballots printed on semi-transparent paper so that the polling station staff easily could see where the cross had been made (or not made). This observation is based upon visiting over 50 polling stations all over the country. This is confirmed by witnesses (citizens) from everywhere. We have, accordingly, notified Central Election Committee in an official complaint, arguing that with the secrecy of the ballot being violated totally, the elections must be annulled and repeated.
2): There were many more or less serious violations of the regulations on how to organize the election day, how to equip the polling stations, and especially of the rules on how to count the votes. Polling station teams generally were even not prepared to follow the official regulations (due to a lack of instruction and training), and in fact, in most cases they were able to follow the official regulations only by relying on our and foreign observers. Moreover, our observers found polling booths with curtains cut so that the polling station team could see into the booth from its desk. They also found polling booths placed at a window in the ground floor, so that people from outside could monitor or influence what happened in the booth or exchange pre-filled ballots with empty ones (which indeed we observed).
The EGP Congress in Paris condemns the substandard election practices and asks the Greens in the European Parliament to initiate a discussion in the European Parliament on this subject.
