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The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) prohibited video surveillance of the vote on election night, leaving the request to suspend the instructions of the CCA without consideration.
This development came after the CEC and the Personal Data Protection Commission did their best to block the video surveillance case. The “Democratic Bulgaria” requested a temporary suspension of the instruction of the CEC, which does not allow video surveillance, but was not allowed either.
The SAC announced that there was no procedural possibility to rule on the merits of the request, since no new facts and circumstances were presented in the case. Democratic Bulgaria can appeal to a five-member SAC, but the chances of success until the election seem slim. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for April 14.
Thus, the government managed to block the case of video surveillance from scrutiny, even though it was won in the first instance by “Democratic Bulgaria”.
However, the union announced that despite Friday’s development, they will broadcast the countdown live through the platform “You Count”.
“We are not going to give up on video surveillance. The functionality on the platform” You Count “is active”, our defenders and observers will appear in the sections with clear instructions on how to carry out video surveillance even for those, in our opinion, vicious instructions of the CEC “.said the co-president of “Democratic Bulgaria” Hristo Ivanov.
He stressed that the observers would not photograph the faces of the members of the section commissions, but rather only the count and elaboration of the protocols will be recorded, and this will be done with the consent of the PEC. Ivanov asked the members of the commissions not to hinder the online broadcast.
The court did its best to decide the case before the elections. The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) and the Personal Data Protection Commission (CPDP), in turn, did their best to avoid a quick decision.
On Friday, the CEC and CPDP courtroom objected to the breach of the 7-day deadline for summoning the parties in the case. The SAC court panel had no choice but to refuse to go ahead with the case and wait for this deadline to expire.
“In practice, they carried out an attack on the democratic rights of citizens to hold elections under clear electoral rules. It was important that everyone had an effective decision,” he said. commented the lawyer. Nadezhda Yordanova, who represents “democratic Bulgaria” and defends online broadcasting.
Adv. Yordanova made an alternative request to the SAC to temporarily suspend the instruction of the CEC, which prohibits video surveillance. He referred to the decision of the court of first instance, which declared illegal the instruction of the CCA, the public interest in ensuring fairness in the electoral process and the upcoming elections.
“I do not accept the position of the CEC and the CPDP, which was expressed at the hearing and which did not allow the resolution of this dispute on the merits. All the arguments that we heard from them were made outside the courtroom. they were ready with them. “Obviously the goals are different, not to achieve justice, fairness, clear and fair elections.”says attorney Yordanova after the court hearing on Friday morning.
Before the SAC, the president of the CPDP, Ventsislav Karadzhov, asked the magistrates to send a question to the Court of Justice of the EU for the direct application of European regulations in relation to video surveillance. Thus, the issue would remain pending not only for these elections, but also for the next ones.
Karadjov added that in principle he does not care about the video surveillance of the elections, but that this must be explicitly recorded in the Electoral Code to be legal.
CEC: Voter cannot take pictures with a phone in sections
“Voters cannot take pictures with a mobile phone in polling stations., since this can lead to so-called. “registered vote” to invalidate the ballot “, CEC President Alexander Andreev later warned BNT. He added that the Electoral Code clearly establishes this requirement, as well as the sanctions for such actions.
Following the same logic, there can be no “show vote”. The only thing that is allowed, in case of a mistake made by the voter, is to request a second ballot with a paper ballot, Andreev said.
He declined to comment on the SAC’s decision to disregard the request to maintain video surveillance at the end of election day.
At the end of the electoral day, in addition to observers, defenders, representatives of parties and coalitions, as well as representatives of the media may be present to see how the results are reported.
Alexander Andreev explained that the sum of the results of the ballots and those of the machines in the sections where the voting will be carried out in both directions has been defined as mandatory by the legislator. This requires more attention when filling in the results for the data to be accurate. You hope that it is these data applications that may cause delays in the processing of the results.
Andreev assured that all the instructions in the order of the Minister of Health regarding the provision of a safe environment to vote in the conditions of a pandemic have been taken into account.
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