New Pell-Mell with Voters’ Data Posted by Bulgaria’s Central Electoral Commission Mind the horns!

Bulgaria’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) explained the 100,000 voters from the lists in the capital Sofia that disappeared between the first and second rounds of the local elections with making a “technical error”.

This happened after Bivol posted on Facebook remarks on the CEC officially announced voter data in Sofia and the northwestern city of Pleven. Unlike Sofia, where over 100,000 voters had disappeared, 20,000 new voters had appeared in the lists for the second round in Pleven.

After the correction of the “technical error”, the difference in Sofia between the first and second rounds ended up being only 67 people. There are now 1,064,705 people in the first list and 1,064,772 in the second list, according to the CEC.

Corrections were also made in the Pleven lists, where in the first round there had been 115,324 voters in the lists, and for the second round, they are down by 20 people.

The data had been an estimation, how about the ballots?

It became clear from the muddled explanations of the CEC that the voters’ data had been submitted as an “estimate” by the regional governors, but the Municipal Electoral Commission (EC) data were the relevant ones.
In order to comply with the State’s “estimate” about the number of eligible voters, the government must provide every one of them with the opportunity to vote and print the appropriate number of ballots.

The question is what happened with the 100,000 printed ballots for Sofia for the first round of the elections that turned out to be unneeded.

The CEC has not yet released open data for the local elections. Previous research by Bivol in connection with the European Parliament elections data earlier this year showed that machine voting and preferences had not been reported in many places.

In order to tackle the problem, the CEC made a “Stalin-like” decision and canceled the machine voting for the local elections – “no machine voting, no problem”.

However, even without the much hated by the CEC and the political parties machine voting, the problems persist.
It turns out that if the data from the voting polls protocols, published by the CEC, are added, the data on the number of people with voting rights are completely different than those announced.

According to the above addition, 1,057,270 voters could vote in the first round or 7,435 less than announced, and in the second round, the number is 1,062,823 voters or 1,949 less than announced. There is a difference of about 1,000 people in Pleven as well, as in other regional cities where there were run-offs.

In addition, there are as many as 674 voting polls in Sofia with a difference in the number of voters between the first and second rounds. In 50 voting polls, the difference is more than 10 voters. In 25 voting polls, the difference is more than 100 voters between the two rounds.

There are also shocking differences and discrepancies between the announced by the CEC data and the protocol from the MEC for the election of municipal councilors in the southern city of Stara Zagora. IT expert Petko Petkov signaled this on Facebook. According to the CEC, 58,931 people had voted, and according to MEC – 58,609.

The MEC numbers for the voters in the primary and secondary lists also do not add up. It is mindboggling how the sum of 133,727 voters in the main list and 21 in the additional list has ended up being 135,412.

The following table shows the data for Sofia extracted from the voting polls protocols of the votes for the mayor of the municipality. To make the table illustrative, only the data for polls with a difference of five or more voters is published. The CEC owes answers to whether these are again “technical errors” and how they can be so massive and systematic.

id	Voting Poll	Voters Round 1	Voters Round 2	Difference	Link to the protocol for round 1	Link to the protocol for round 2
1	224619046	231	835	-604	224619046	224619046
2	224613056	238	776	-538	224613056	224613056
3	224612004	360	847	-487	224612004	224612004
4	224611028	720	283	437	224611028	224611028
5	224602025	319	754	-435	224602025	224602025
6	224611005	284	708	-424	224611005	224611005
7	224605028	305	698	-393	224605028	224605028
8	224606033	296	689	-393	224606033	224606033
9	224618013	283	672	-389	224618013	224618013
10	224612006	607	245	362	224612006	224612006
11	224614072	235	591	-356	224614072	224614072
12	224609077	264	598	-334	224609077	224609077
13	224609014	320	634	-314	224609014	224609014
14	224601008	264	573	-309	224601008	224601008
15	224610061	267	568	-301	224610061	224610061
16	224610070	289	571	-282	224610070	224610070
17	224621026	365	634	-269	224621026	224621026
18	224615094	263	531	-268	224615094	224615094
19	224609047	271	537	-266	224609047	224609047
20	224610092	464	205	259	224610092	224610092
21	224623016	307	566	-259	224623016	224623016
22	224610007	224	482	-258	224610007	224610007
23	224619084	500	724	-224	224619084	224619084
24	224615092	868	689	179	224615092	224615092
25	224603012	350	495	-145	224603012	224603012
26	224608026	779	879	-100	224608026	224608026
27	224601032	711	809	-98	224601032	224601032
28	224610105	32	102	-70	224610105	224610105
29	224609080	256	196	60	224609080	224609080
30	224608018	442	383	59	224608018	224608018
31	224606004	933	884	49	224606004	224606004
32	224610099	61	14	47	224610099	224610099
33	224615091	645	600	45	224615091	224615091
34	224610102	90	51	39	224610102	224610102
35	224620038	937	898	39	224620038	224620038
36	224603055	826	792	34	224603055	224603055
37	224604060	8	41	-33	224604060	224604060
38	224607078	200	233	-33	224607078	224607078
39	224618007	715	683	32	224618007	224618007
40	224605007	655	686	-31	224605007	224605007
41	224608035	42	18	24	224608035	224608035
42	224610100	37	14	23	224610100	224610100
43	224611073	36	14	22	224611073	224611073
44	224610109	389	369	20	224610109	224610109
45	224613059	767	786	-19	224613059	224613059
46	224605035	147	131	16	224605035	224605035
47	224610082	403	387	16	224610082	224610082
48	224617059	243	227	16	224617059	224617059
49	224611068	56	41	15	224611068	224611068
50	224615126	43	31	12	224615126	224615126
51	224610101	32	22	10	224610101	224610101

***

If you find this article useful, support our work with a small donation.

Pay a Bivol Tax!

We will highly appreciate if you decide to support us with monthly donations keeping the option Monthly

About
Latest Posts

Атанас Чобанов

Специализиран в журналистика на данните и фанансови разследвания. Член на борда на OCCRP от 2016 до 2018 г. Global Shining Lights Award за 2017 и 2019 г.

Latest posts by Атанас Чобанов (see all)