Machinations with the mobile sections, manipulations with invalid ballots, turned off cameras, scribbling and adding - the Constitutional Court's decision clearly showed us how the manipulations of the elections are carried out. And in whose favor they are done.
The decision of the Constitutional Court to partially annul the last parliamentary elections is not important only because "Majesty" passed the 4% barrier.
The government will probably survive in the end, but the price will be seven billion in the budget for unclear purposes - probably client expenses for companies and municipalities around GERB and "DPS Novo nachlas" - plus extras like the postal "Lafka", proposed by Delyan Peevski. This is not insignificant, but there is something even more important.
The Constitutional Court's decision actually documents the various types of manipulation with paper ballots and gives an idea of the systematic nature of these manipulations. The review of only one sixth of the ballots led to the change of 16 mandates in parliament and the detection of about 2,000 written votes. But this is actually the tip of the iceberg - the decision also reveals many machinations that did not lead to the invalidation of votes. However, these machinations, some of which we will list below, are extremely visible and clear.
It became clear which two parties profit the most from the machinations
The decision is important because it also demonstrates the trend that the machinations are mainly done in favor of two parties: "New Beginning" and GERB. Over 1,000 votes have been officially proven to have been written for "New Beginning", about 400 for GERB. These are actually insignificant amounts, but they show the existence of party machines that work in this way. There is no particular point in buying sections and risking criminal prosecution for a few hundred or a few thousand votes. If this is proven to be done in different places in the country, then this method is systematically relied on. Now they were simply "caught" in certain places for 2000 votes.
Therefore, the convenient thesis that everyone is a scammer should not be imposed. There are real donkeys who systematically take advantage of the described machinations. And it is they who are trying to impose the understanding that, you see, all parties together are guilty of electoral manipulations, because they all had people in the election commissions. A scoundrel does not play cards - you have to protect your votes, otherwise they will steal them from you. That is, the victims whose votes were stolen are also guilty.
Systematic fraud and control over institutions
In the general case of manipulation, however, it is a crime in which specific people participate, and not all parties together. These people change the outcome of the elections and this must be investigated and punished by the state. The parties cannot be expected to investigate who, how and why bribed or bribed their representative and why he or she agreed to participate in the crime. If such vote-rigging is happening systematically, it means that the state authorities in the person of the prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Interior tolerate the commission of such crimes and neither search for nor punish the perpetrators.
In fact, everything is so transparent that it has long been shameful, but despite this, the blame for the vote manipulations continues to be sought either in the Constitutional Court or in the parties whose votes were stolen. The chain is actually as follows: 1) precisely certain parties systematically commit such fraud and they are the ones who now turn out to have the most votes; 2) these parties control the prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Interior; 3) the prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Interior systematically tolerate any election machinations in favor of these parties and instead of punishing obvious offenders, they look for bodies under the bull or attack institutions such as the Constitutional Court. According to the presented data and the court's decision, these two parties are GERB and "New Beginning".
Three things need to be done urgently
1) To introduce mandatory machine voting, which does not allow the machinations in question. There is not a single fact or evidence of manipulation of the machine vote. For the paper vote, the technology of manipulation has already been documented in an authoritative decision of the Constitutional Court;
2) To seek criminal liability for members of election commissions and other officials who committed and allowed the manipulations. In many of the sections, it is about intentional vote falsification and the work of the prosecutor's office, and the investigation is to prove them in the appropriate order;
3) To stop the attacks on the Constitutional Court, which alone, albeit with some minor remarks, did its job and protected the right to vote of Bulgarian citizens. The Constitutional Court's decision is proof that institutions in Bulgaria work and can work.
Not all are as fake as the fakes convince you.
List of documented manipulations
The good thing about the Constitutional Court's decision is that it maps, illustrates and proves various manipulations, not all of which can lead to votes being declared invalid, however. In order to punish the known ones and prevent future abuses, the ball is now in the court of other bodies - mayors, prosecutors, investigators, and they must finish the work started by the court:
1) Machinations with mobile polling stations
There are a total of 18 mobile ballot boxes in the whole of Sofia and Sofia region. In Plovdiv and Plovdiv region - a total of 14, Burgas - 7. However, in Kardzhali there are 40. In the Razgrad region there are 30 boxes, and in Blagoevgrad - 21, in Vratsa - 29. Obvious fraud - there is no way that small towns and their districts need many more boxes than in Sofia and its district:
The court concludes:
"Whatever doubts may be possible about the objective possibility within the framework of the election day - from 7:00 to 20:00 according to Art. 220, para. 1 EC, 271 or 172 voters to exercise their active right to vote with a mobile ballot box in compliance with constitutional principles, this in itself is not a reason for the vote of all these 271 or 172 voters to be recognized as invalid. In order to declare a vote invalid, the court relies on evidence on the basis of which it can make a reasonable conclusion about a violation that leads to the invalidity of the vote cast, and not on doubts and assumptions. The fact that 95.2% of the 271 votes cast with the mobile ballot box are for one party (remember which one - b.a.) or that 97.7% of the 172 votes cast with the mobile ballot box are also for one party, is also not in itself evidence establishing the invalidity of all votes cast with the mobile ballot box…"
How many are these votes from mobile ballot boxes for one party that are doubtful but not declared invalid? The decision allows for a calculation, but we are talking about thousands. In Kardzhali alone, over 1,000 people voted with mobile ballot boxes, while in the 26th Sofia district only 28 voted in this way.
2) Cameras deliberately and without reason turned off
In some sections - of the more cunning manipulators - someone stands in front of the camera, supposedly by chance. However, when the theater is bad, they can betray themselves in front of the camera, as happened in some high-profile cases. That is why in many places they simply did not include video surveillance:
"From the information received by the Central Election Commission, it is evident that in 43 section election commissions - 20 in 09 Kardzhali electoral district, 7 in 01 Blagoevgrad electoral district, 3 in 26 Sofia electoral district, 1 each in 02 Burgas, 05 Vidin, 12 Montana, 13 Pazardzhik, 14 Pernik, 16 Plovdiv, 18 Razgrad, 19 Ruse, 20 Silistra, 24 Sofia, 28 Targovishte, 29 Haskovo and 31 Yambol electoral districts - real-time video surveillance and video broadcasting was not implemented because the devices were not turned on or were not activated. This means that the reason for the lack of video surveillance and video recording in these sections is subjective - it is due to the actions of the members of the section election commission."
Again, the particularly problematic sections are in the expected places - Kardzhali and Blagoevgrad.
3) Manipulations with invalid ballots
It has long been known that there are games with the invalidity of ballots. Here it is true that the law is also bad and there are strange requirements, such as the one about not leaving the square, which is clearly copied from children's coloring books. There are unconscious mistakes, but there are also conscious manipulations. The Constitutional Court has not been able to establish what the proportion between them is, but the general picture is as follows:
"The result of the verified 1768 polling stations, subject to the expertise under task 1, shows a change in the distribution of actual votes between parties and coalitions in 46.75% of the verified protocols, but the change in over 90% of cases is the result of an assessment of the validity and invalidity of the vote cast that is not in accordance with the law. The differences established on this basis between what is entered in the protocol of the sectional election commission and what is accepted by the expertise are usually within the limits of one or two votes per candidate list. The change adopted by the Court in the number of valid and invalid votes and their distribution by candidate lists are not indicated separately for each polling station in view of their large number, but the cumulative effect of the changes is reflected in the final result."
Yes, indeed, one or two votes per candidate list from half of the protocols may not seem like much at first glance. But if you apply this proportion to over 11,000 sections, the effect is expressed in thousands of votes for each of the parties. And some are systematically in the minus - and others are in the plus. Guess which ones!
4) Manipulations with the counting of paper ballots
The ballot is for one party, but it is written for another. Error. We are people: "Cases of actual votes cast for one candidate list being entered in the protocol as being cast for another have been found, and the entry was not always made for the candidate list entered directly above or below, for which the votes were cast."
How many are there? The ones listed by the court are within the hundreds of sections checked.
5) Scribbling on the ballots
"Paper ballots have been found to have an additional mark on them, which, in view of Art. 278, para. 3, item 2 of the Electoral Code, makes the vote cast through them invalid. In section 122400017, 12 Montana electoral district, an additional mark was found on 33 paper ballots, apparently obtained when using the ballot as a base for placing a vote mark, which is why the votes were considered invalid."
These are only the identified cases. More talented ballot scribblers are difficult to catch, however.
6) Filling in ballots not by the voter
"The graphic expertise accepted by the Court established that a vote mark was placed on paper ballots by persons who are not the persons registered as having exercised their right to vote. In three of the electoral districts, multiple ballots were identified on which the vote mark was placed by one person, and not by the respective voter. The violation of the active right to vote of votes counted for a specific party established by expert examination gave the Court grounds to invalidate the votes counted through these paper ballots."
It is important to emphasize again - the vanats are several sections with hundreds of votes. But these are only the documented ones, those who were not very careful when filling them out and were in a hurry.
7) Throwing away or losing paper ballots
The dispute about the "lost" 780 ballots - most for "New Beginning" - is actually a huge impudence. After documenting all the manipulations, which somehow, but are mainly in favor of this party and GERB, to ask them to record what was filled in the protocols is beyond decency. The Constitutional Court has twice requested the bags from the CEC and counted what it received. Why the paper ballots were "lost" is an interesting question for the prosecutor's office to deal with. But they were clearly not for display. (And one more thing - even if these 780 ballots had been counted, "Majesty" would still have entered the National Assembly. It's a matter of really simple arithmetic.)
8) Manipulations with the paper prints from the machines
The saddest thing about the whole decision is that the Constitutional Court is forced by law to invalidate machine votes for parties for which a paper print is missing. It has already become clear above what is done with paper ballots - the same things can and apparently are done with paper prints. The Constitutional Court concludes:
"Thus established votes through a technical device for machine voting, for which the evidence of a material medium specified in the instructions of the Central Election Commission is missing in the case - a defective ballot, a report of findings - are of no legal significance for the election result, because the legislator recognizes as valid only a vote for which a ballot printed by the technical device for machine voting is available, on which the vote of the voter is written, and the law does not recognize an invalid vote from ballots from machine voting."
With machines worth hundreds of millions of leva, we allow such problems because we use them as printers. And all this because a group of parties - which became known as the "paper coalition" - "did not trust" the machines. And it is clear that it trusts the machinists, who do all sorts of tricks with ballots and prints. After all, there are people who doubt that the Earth is round and that man has ever walked on the Moon. There are also those who doubt machine voting, but there are more who find it profitable to pretend to be doubters.
The conclusions are clear, basic integrity is needed
It is clear why certain parties - who have influence over the prosecutor's office - wanted to block the Constitutional Court's decision. When they saw that they would not be able to, they quite deliberately tried to discredit the Constitutional Court - the body that in this case was doing its job and had done its job.
The conclusions from recent events are clear and have already been drawn, not only in this text. At the very least, it is a matter of basic integrity to acknowledge and correct the mistake of canceling the machine vote.
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This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and the State Gazette as a whole.