The Central Election Commission (CEC) has publicly generated a hash code for the voting machines in the 25 October presidential and vice-presidential election, the CEC and the Ministry of Innovation and Digital Transformation said.
The code will be printed on every control receipt from the machines. It will be posted on the CEC and ministry websites. On election day it will also be displayed outside every polling station, so voters can compare it with the digits on their receipt.
The code was generated in a controlled environment provided by the ministry. Today, in the "Parter" hall, officials from both bodies showed journalists a voting machine that printed a receipt with the pre-generated code. Innovation and digital transformation minister Ivan Vasilev and CEC chair Georgi Horozov attended the presentation.
Horozov said the procedure followed the Electoral Code and legal deadlines and was fully public and transparent. "The software was built in a lawful, trusted way and the hash code was generated," he said.
Vasilev said openness means transparency, and transparency builds trust in the election process. The ministry's aim is for the vote to be predictable, transparent and traceable. "The result of the procedure, the so-called hash code, is a unique digital fingerprint," the minister said.
The ministry says the way the code was built guarantees the software is authentic.
Under the latest changes to the Electoral Code, machine voting is compulsory in polling stations with more than 300 people on the register. There are 9,311 such stations in Bulgaria, and about 2,000 of them will have two machines because their lists exceed 780 people.
Abroad, 242 polling stations will use machine voting, and 38 of them will have two machines. CEC spokeswoman Stoyanka Balova said 280 machines are planned for the first round abroad.