Legal Committee Discusses Amendments to the Electoral Code: Machine Voting and Debates Before Elections

15.01.2026 | Legislative changes

The Legal Committee is discussing changes to the Electoral Code, focusing on machine voting, paper ballots, and potential legislative changes before the elections. Members of parliament and representatives of the bar council express different opinions.

Снимка от OSCE Parliamentary Assembly from Copenhagen, Denmark, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The parliamentary legal committee held a discussion on proposed changes to the Election Code (EC). The agenda includes a vote on amendments introduced by Nadezhda Yordanova and a group of MPs from "We Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria", related to the introduction of fully machine voting.

MPs from "We Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria" (WCC-DB), "Vazrazhdane", "Moral, Unity, Honor" (MUH) requested that the second reading of the general bill be removed from the agenda, but did not gather the necessary votes.

Representatives of the Supreme Bar Council expressed a position against significant changes to the EC two months before the elections, emphasizing the importance of the paper ballot.

Radostin Vasilev from MUH proposed the termination of the meeting, expressing concerns about a possible "sabotage" of the election process. Yavor Bozhankov from WCC-DB supported machine voting as a guarantee of fair elections.

The discussed bill of WCC-DB aims to restore fully machine voting.