The latest vote is set to cost almost €120m, making it the most expensive so far and twice as costly as the previous one, Kalin Slavov of Transparency Without Borders told BNT.
Slavov thinks the record cost may be partly due to the servicing of the voting machines. Each one had a full service, and different devices needed different technical work.
"Yes, democracy has no price, but we still need to be much more responsible, especially in times of budget deficit and hardship that we all feel," Slavov said.
This time all voting was done by machine. Slavov says that makes elections more modern and easier to run, and that polling station commissions worked more calmly.
Before this, Bulgaria used machines and paper ballots side by side. Slavov says that model could not continue.
"Until recently we had taken the worst approach, to put it mildly – to vote with both machines and paper ballots," he said.
He says mixed voting caused problems with sending and counting votes. There were also errors in the protocols. Machine results were sent separately, and people in the regional election commissions stayed up until morning. Fully machine voting ended that.
Some polling stations still had technical problems with the machines. Slavov said this does not surprise him, as the devices are quite old.
Two candidates ran in the election, both put forward by initiative committees. Slavov says that on paper they come from committees, but in reality they are party candidates, and the parties' hard-core supporters were mobilised. Not all the big political parties took part.
Turnout was low. Slavov says there are many reasons and they need a deep analysis. He said it is not clear whether the drop comes from a lack of controlled voting, or from the missing party vote of the groups that did not take part.
He noted that this time there was no major tension around bought and controlled votes. In polling stations that usually swing easily, which is a sign of bought or controlled votes, people simply did not vote.
On 1 November we reported that Burgas region has the most reports of election violations in the country – 97 out of 415, according to the Interior Ministry. Most reports nationwide were about alleged vote buying.
Slavov says bought and controlled votes may be falling, but it is too early to say so with certainty.