About a week before the presidential election, polling station commissions (SIK) are seeing mass replacements of members. In Belitsa, two members of a commission where video cameras showed ballots being filled in will count the votes again. Officials of the regional election commissions in Blagoevgrad and Montana and of the Central Election Commission (CIK) said this.

After the parliamentary election in October 2024, Bulgarian National Television (BNT) aired a video of a SIK member in Belitsa filling in blank ballots for two parties. He is not taking part in the current election.

Two other members of the same commission, who were present when the violations happened, will count votes again. Their names are on the Belitsa SIK list.

Yoana Lozanova-Palankova, chair of the Blagoevgrad regional election commission, said such a person cannot be removed from the lists unless they resign. "I think it would be good to have a 'black list' of such people," she told BNT. She said these people should show up when someone checks who sits on SIKs. An archive recording from 29 October 2023 has words about the ballots.

Lozanova-Palankova said the parties nominate the people on the commissions. She said there are always problem polling stations, especially in the municipalities of Belitsa and Yakoruda, where the population is mixed.

In Montana, the regional commission is paying closer attention. At the local election in the village of Gabrovnitsa, video cameras showed a woman writing on ballots. The case became known as "the woman with the rings".

The Montana regional commission said its system has no record of who has been convicted, because that is not its job. The parties nominate people, and the commission only checks the criteria in the system. Asked by BNT whether it can turn anyone down, the commission said it cannot.

CIK spokeswoman Stoyanka Balova said the CIK applies the Electoral Code and has no separate power to check the people the parties nominate. The regional commissions appoint SIK members, but they also have no right to replace them. "But we really hope the political parties will take responsibility, this problem has been talked about for years," Balova told BNT.

SIK members must speak Bulgarian. They cannot be candidates in the same type of election or hold certain public posts. Spouses and relatives cannot work in the same polling station.

In the Blagoevgrad area, SIK training has only just begun, yet there are already replacements. Lozanova-Palankova said there are quite a few changes now. She called on the parties not to replace people at the last moment, if only because training is under way. The training is unpaid.

Pay for SIK members ranges from €156 to €230. A member gets €156, a secretary €170 and a chair €185. Extra work, such as setting up the polling room, pays €15 each.

Raya Zasheva, a SIK chair in Blagoevgrad who will run a polling station for the second time, thinks the sums are fair and well judged, especially as election day is a day off. She said the money makes people think about whether to take part.

SIK members abroad get between €100 and €150 more.