Police guarded the delivery of 249,300 ballot papers for the 25 October presidential election to the regional administration in Haskovo around midday, deputy regional governor Viktor Marev said.

The ballots will stay at the administration until they are handed to the municipalities. Haskovo and Dimitrovgrad collect theirs today. The other municipalities will get theirs from tomorrow, on a set schedule.

Marev said the print run is 10% bigger than the number of voters. The latest figures put the region's voters at 225,070.

The region has 464 polling stations. Seven of them are mobile: four in Stambolovo municipality, two in Haskovo and one in Ivaylovgrad. Ina Veskova, chair of the regional election commission in Haskovo, said stations in hospitals and in the remand prison have not yet been set up.

The polling station commissions have 3,750 members. About 20 were replaced yesterday because they resigned, had health problems or were found to hold appointments that bar them from the job. More replacements are under way. Veskova said it is still to be decided how long changes to the commissions will be allowed.

Training for polling station members is ending in the municipalities. In Dimitrovgrad it is on 21 October. Veskova called on members to attend, because the rules have changed. Until now the regional commission decided whether to switch to a paper ballot when a voting machine had a problem. Now the polling station commission makes that call. At the start of election day, the commissions will divide up their tasks.

The first materials for the vote, 2,150 rolls for the voting machines, reached Haskovo last Wednesday.